I love Lampad

 

LOUD NOISES!

So if you’ve not gathered by now I have only played Reva2 this edition (despite my well documented love of Horse Nun go Brrrr in 2nd Ed) and there are a few key components that I love for her: Making Pyre markers, moving Pyre markers, and not dieing.  So if you’re familiar with Maniacal Cackles voice read the following with his timbre: “look at this fucker! What the shit?”

Df4 is no stranger to Rezzer players but this nearly always offset by hard to wound and having more Hp than Ss cost. The Lampad has neither of these things, table flipping time! What the shit!?! Zomg these things are paper thin. No they’re not, calm down ragey internet dude. 

Firstly with Flaming Body they can reduce their burning by up to 2 to reduce by 2. So right away you should be able to see that you’re going to stacking as much burning as possible on these guys to make them as tanky as possible. So Ghost Lights, Reva using fan the flames and Lanterns light if there’s no more suitable target, friendly models just walking through pyres and the  Reva using Lanterns light to dump it all on a Lampad, using other Lampads to dump pyre markers on you both or hovering flame etc etc etc literally just look on your cards and anything that does burning and only 1 dmg (Reva will heal them when they gain burning anyway so one dmg is fine) and turn 1 apply it to however many Lampads you have. Get them good and toasty to fuel Flaming Body. 

Secondly their Demise means for the cost of pitching a card and having a pyre marker within 6” you’re not dieing. Beware anti healing tech for obvious reasons but Possessing Flame can really help these guys keep going and is one of the reasons people bring anti marker tech into Reva2.

Like most of the keyword they make Pyres when they kill models (note again this is one of those many abilities in Revenant that you think say enemy only but don’t. No really! Go check).  

Quick aside, to play this crew well you need a comprehensive understanding of the difference between drop, create and place. Quick summary that in no way replaces learning the rules for this: drop/create happen when a marker is being made out of thin air, place happens to an already existing marker and counts as a moved marker. A create is just a drop with more rules, a place is not a drop. When a marker is dropped it itself causes no additional effects on the game. (It does trigger all of R2s front of card nonsense though).  So when a pyre marker is dropped on a model it doesn’t cause burning, it’s the Reva wiggle that pushes a model through the Pyre that does that. Equally when a Pyre Marker is placed on a model it does cause burning but it doesn’t trigger the Reva wiggle. Got that? I hope so, because it’s pretty key. So Lampads have 2 ways of placing Pyres and 2 ways of dropping pyres (one of which is a create, which is just a drop with more rules) we’ve covered off one already in Funeral Pyres so let’s look at the others.

Dancing in the flames: as a Lampad takes a walk action it can place any Pyre marker it goes through into btb with itself at the end of the walk. Place. Not drop. Place. Causes burning to anyone in the marker (including friendlies and itself), no wiggle.  Very handy for moving markers about but is once per turn so plan and consider how you use it.

Hovering flame, mask trigger: hovering flame is a great ability and whilst it is not a leap it is a move on a bonus so will make these models great for any instance where interact/move/interact is useful be that cloak & dagger or ensnare or whatever. If that’s not enough you’re going to put burning on any model you move through (which with R2 is also ping dmg on enemies and healing on friendlies). I will often hovering flame into combat rather than charging because of this. With a mask trigger you get to choose any marker within 2” as a cost of the action (no really it’s any, not just pyres. The majority of the time you’re going to use it on pyres but you can absolutely use this on scheme markers too. Friendly or enemy!) because it’s a cost it happens first before moving (Learn your timings people! It’s significant) and then placing the marker in btb with the Lampad. Again place, not drop.  Hovering flame is a great mobility aid but it can also move any markers around. No not strategy markers, don’t be silly.

Lastly is there melee attack and it’s baked in ram trigger. As a cost (timings!) if the target already has burning +3  you can create a pyre marker within 1” of the target. Creates are just drops with more rules so this will trigger then Reva wiggle BUT because it’s a create it must obey the rules of create. It can’t go btb with any model other than the Lampad and it cannot be put on the table in such a way that it makes contact with any other marker. At all. You just can’t. Absolutely bare this in mind. The attack itself is great, a very reliable stat 6 2/3/4 dmg and burning 1. This means if all goes well you should be able to hovering flame up to a target with a pyre marker in tow (1 burning from hovering flame, 1 dmg from Reva, 1 burning from pyre marker place) punch them once (min dmg 2 + 1 burning) they’re now on the magic 3 burning, punch them again (min dmg 2 + 1 burning) create a marker, wiggle (1 burning on both of you and 1 heal on you) for a total of 5 dmg and 5 burning on the target. Not too shabby, not too shabby at all. 7 dmg ostensibly (once people have burned at the end of the turn) is a big old chunk of dmg and is probably enough for Reva to then immolate the target to summon another Lampad. No it’s not a 3/5/6 attack but it is still a great attack and sometimes you have to look beyond just the numbers.  The attack does also have a blaze trigger which is nice when it comes up (more burning, more gooder) but it’s not something I’m fishing for or would use a high card on for specifically.

If that wasn’t enough, Lampads have a perfectly serviceable ranged attack. It’s not flamethrower so it doesn’t attack mv but that’s fine but it does do 2 dmg and it does cause burning. I think I’ve used it more to shoot my own zombies to make pyre markers if I’m honest and that’s a perfectly good use of it.

When I’m assessing models for a Reva2 crew I ask myself 4 real questions:

* does it have the mobility to score me VP away from the brawl?

* does it put out burning?

* does it make and move pyre markers?

*is it obnoxious to kill?

The Lampad does everything I want from a Revenant model. And I can summon them. 

I love Lampad.

That said have you ever read their fluff from m2e?:

“During the days of the first Breach, conflict erupted between the miners of Prosper and their Council overseers. The mages reacted with violence, and at some point, the coal deposits beneath the town caught fire. Prosper fell into a sinkhole, and a century later, those fires are still burning.

The souls of the dead became Lampads, sentient flames that are capable of taking control of corpses. They “ride” these flaming corpses in order to travel beyond the borders of their smoldering home, creating new Lampads each time someone succumbs to their magical flames.”

…..dark