Scarsfell Griffon

I recently had the opportunity to go spend a bit of my afternoon at Adepticon due to its proximity to Chicago (yes, its billed as being in Chicago, but if you live in Chicago you know that Lombard is definitely not the same thing, but I'm splitting hairs).  Anyway, yea, there were a bunch of cool things like the Mountain King, Conquest, Stormwall, 3mo, and so on ... but the one that was the biggest surprise and most exciting for me is here, the Scarsfell Griffon!

I've been very excited for this beast for a while, and boy does that model deliver.  I took this picture with my crappy DROID and it doesn't come close to doing justice to how great this model looks.  Those wings are absolutely amazing and the rest of the model looks great too.  I like how they took something from mythology and gave it the Circle Orboros look.  Some people have bitched that it doesn't look like a Griffon since its basically a bipedal, but that's in keeping with the Circle look I think.  One of the BIG reasons for the success of Privateer Press I think is that they aren't just a clone of what has come before, but have twisted things to their own liking.

For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to read Domination (and I definitely recommend that you do), here are the stats we'll be working with...

SPD:6 STR:8 MAT:6 RAT:1 DEF:14 ARM:15 CMD:6

Head Attack - Beak - P+S 12

Left Attack - Claw - P+S 11 w/ Open Fist

Right Attack - Claw - P+S 11 w/ Open Fist

FURY:3 THR:8 FA:U

Stealth
Flight
Hunter
Long Leash

Animus - Shadow Shift
COST:2 RNG:SELF AOE:- POW:- UP:NO OFF:NO

I've heard a lot of people complaining about the rules for this beast.  Generally including either that its only SPD 6 instead of SPD 7, that its animus is only SELF and that it doesn't hit very hard, or that it should be 4 points.  To quash that last one, I think 4 points would likely be too cheap for what it has, so we'll move on.  SPD 7 I think is the one place I might agree given that Argus and Woldwyrds are SPD 7, but I think that SPD 6 is still very solid.  I don't think I'm annoyed with Shadow Shift being RNG SELF, its more of an annoyance that we have the Druid Wilder and continue to not get animi that have a RNG on them.  As far as not hitting hard?  Sure the attacks are low POW, but it has THREE initial attacks along with being able to buy upto 3 more ... that's kind of a big deal.

Where I'm excited actually has more to do with the extra rules of Stealth, Flight, Hunter and Long Leash. Can this thing kill a heavy?  Nope.  Have you played lately though?  If you aren't playing against Legion its actually pretty likely that you're looking at a list with only one heavy, maybe 2.  This thing is going to get to what you send it at, and they aren't going to be able to hide the target by being in a forest or being outside of the caster's control area.  Boosted MAT 6 should reliably hit most targets in the game.

Lets not forget that he's got open hands either.  Yea, you're going to have to advance up and to it, but throwing medium and small based models isn't something to shrug off either.

I don't think he'll make it into every list, but I can definitely see that there are some that'll benefit from having him around.  Krueger2 likes the animus a lot.  Kaya1 would be an interesting home for it by putting something with MAT 8 pretty much anywhere on the table.  Morvahna can run it in theme (if you can risk not playing heavies) and its going to deal with a lot of the problem pieces she has).  Cassius might get some use out of it as well.  Getting Warpath triggers might be good for Kromac, and it just as much could benefit Grayle.  Baldur1 and 2 don't seem likely to need him though with his enjoyment of the wolds.

Another place that I look for him to be hot is as reinforcements in a flank scenario.  Griffon + Blackclad Wayfarer has the potential to get to a target pretty close to 16" from the side (place within 3" + base ~1.5" + hunter's mark 2" + SPD 6" + charge 3" + melee rng 0.5").  That fits neatly in 7 points which is perfect for a 35 point game,  In a 50 point game there's likely to be 3 more relevant points we can get in there.

No matter what, I'll be excited to get this on the table as soon as possible basically.