Welcome back to the Hiring Post. And now, as promised, something nasty.
The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings.
–John Bright
Outwardly beautiful, Samael, Warrior Angel is truly a nasty and fearsome model serving the forces of the Demon Faction. He is a one of the three Angels currently available to the faction –including Asiliah, Fallen Angel and Tsilla, Broken Angel. The three of them all bring some surprising aspects to the Hosts of Hell
Samael is an Officer, and at 70 points he presently numbers among the officers with the highest costs in the game. Despite this, the tools that he brings to the table make him worth far more than his points. Let’s take a look at the things that Samael brings to the table:
Samael, Warrior Angel is a reasonably good model buffer, thanks to Charisma and his Martial Mortification order. His order Samael’s Chosen One means you can absorb the damage done to an important model – allowing you to frustrate opponents who won’t be able to put an end to useful but fragile models like the Mourner. Like all officers he has Vae Victis and Vae Soli, but with a command of only 4 he isn’t going to be as useful for this as an officer like Asiliah, but it is a respectable average command score.
He’s a powerful melee attacker – with base Combat 5, Frenzy, and his very fearsome damage profile (doing four damage for a single hit – many other models don’t do four damage until they get three hits) Samael is very capable of taking the fight to the enemy and hurting them. To help him get there, he has Levitation to get past pesky terrain that would slow a lesser entity.
And while he’s plowing through enemy models, he is gifted at keeping himself alive. Defense 5, Man-At-Arms and Regeneration 2 mean that in some games, Samael will do more damage to himself with Martial Mortifaction and Samael’s Chosen One than your opponent will do to him.
Now we come to his strangest ability. You, as Samael’s commander, are occasionally going to want to get him killed. (Let that sink in for a moment) Samael’s order Ultimate Sacrifice, allows him to heal his wounded allies back to full health at the cost of his life. In addition, losing him in this way doesn’t cause your company to lose command points the way they normally would.
Some important notes on this:
- Ultimate Sacrifice only heals wounded models, it gives no benefit to models that are already dead.
- Make sure the healing gains outweigh the loss of Samael. If you and your opponent have battered each other’s forces heavily but most of your models are still in play with low life, then the loss of Samael might be worth it. Even though his death doesn’t remove any Command, you still are losing your Vae Victis and Vae Soli, as well as Samael’s other buffs.
- Opponents might cry when you do this. (I myself almost cried the first time it was done to me.)
That’s it for this Hiring Post. Next month, we visit the Saracens.
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