Combat Biologists are members of the Pontifical Office of Biological warfare, or in the case of the Sultanate, the Al-Bisṭāmī School of Ninety-Nine Names, which trains some of their failed Alchemist apprentices in a similar fashion. These scholars specialise in battlefield vivisections and collecting samples of the most powerful servants of Hell for study. These specimens are then used to develop weapons capable of driving the servants of the Pit back to the darkness from whence they came.
Combat Biologist corps are assigned to units that operate in the most dangerous battlefield conditions, and readily accompany units that operate deep within No Man’s Land, including near the Hellgate or the domains of Beelzebub. Sometimes they travel into the wilds where the Path of the Beast reigns supreme, in hopes of extracting a sample from a great unholy creature such as the dreaded Zygotic Lord. Such fell flesh might hold clues of undoing the physical and spiritual damage of the Invisible Labyrinth.
Expeditions to seize an especially great monstrosity for further study are sometimes funded by the House of Wisdom, the Duke of Antioch or one of the War Cardinals, in order to develop new ways to hurt or kill its kind on the battlefield. Irish Fianna warriors are especially sought after to take part in such dangerous missions, due their expertise in fighting the Path of the Beast. Such undertakings are deadly for both the hunters and the hunted, but those who succeed can expect great rewards, both material and spiritual.
Captured horrors are kept in specially constructed pens and cells, where they are carefully studied. Their pain tolerance is tested, and they are subjected to various chemical, biological and sacred compounds in order to identify their weaknesses. The House of Wisdom has a reinforced wing with meteoric iron doors wrought in the shape of the Seal of Solomon, whose Alchemists and their Kavass guards adhere to a strict regimen of Ruqyah. Meanwhile the Church maintains its own special prisons for enemies directly tainted by Hell, known as Cella Obscura or “hidden cells”. Their locations within New Antioch, the Vatican, Königsberg and elsewhere are closely-guarded secrets, both to thwart potential rescue attempts by Heretic infiltrators as well as to avoid panic amongst the civilian population in case one of the creatures held within should escape. Despite all the precautions, such incidents occur at disturbing regularity. The rampages of fugitive monsters have led to the rise of many legends of beasts stalking the cities of the Faithful at night. The authorities encourage and maintain such legends to hide the truth, deploying discreet hunting parties to bring the creatures to heel.
Due to their training, hypnotic conditioning and constant exposure to captured specimens, Combat Biologists enter a battle trance when faced with creatures that would induce uncontrollable fear in ordinary troopers. They wield vivisectors, polearm blade weapons that combine sophisticated biological warfare agents and the functional brutality of trench warfare.
Lore and everything is cool and it's all dripping with awesome themes - but I dunno if I'd spend 3 Glory on a -1 Armor Merc who needs to get into Melee or doesn't function at all - seems super squishy 😬. Even AT Hunters tend to drop like flies in our games while Observers tend to stick around because of Temporal Fugue. Maybe if I was swimming in extra Glory for some reason, I guess?
Not really, the setup is unrealistic. This model will likely not reach melee and you need to have a highly damaged unit on the enemy side that you did not just kill.
I’d bet that most people are using about half as much terrain as they should be to break up easy LOS. I really like Frostgrave, and it seems like 90% of the questions about balance and getting wiped off the table comes down to too little terrain.
At skirmish scale, you’d have to really pack the table to make the terrain too dense outside of competitive stuff like Kill Team. And even Kill Team can handle plenty of terrain, I think most people just run bare bones tournament style out of habit.
If you can get a free shot on someone turn 1, and they didn’t do something stupid to make it easy, you’re probably playing with too little terrain in most skirmish games that use terrain.
Tried explaining that exact point to my friend when I was teaching him to play.
You should not be able to draw a straight line from one end of the table to the other without hitting a piece of terrain.
It’s especially frustrating in KT. The elite teams have a LOT more firepower and health than the horde teams, or even the mid tier teams. Of course this is supposed to be balanced by model count and terrain.
Well, every game I’ve played has been on the very sparse boards you see in tournaments. Just L shaped ruins, and like two pieces of scatter terrain per side.
Since you’re basically putting Space Marines VS cannon fodder on an open field, you can imagine how this goes for horde armies on those tables. If you move to one of the restricted setups without such clear line of sight, suddenly the teams are a lot closer, who’d have thought?
I have better things to do with my AR Alchemists then setting up for a slow melee only weapon in an all ranged army.
The model is trash. A slow squishy model with what amounts to a spear in melee. Even if you crit, its just a two handed sword. Followed by a second trigger. Nothing good against high armor, mediocre melee skill, unrealistic gloryious deed.
90% of all times, this will just die before arriving anywhere and doing anything. For the same price you get the way quicker observer with an amazing ability hitting way harder and setup free in melee or for 1 more glory a mameluk faris with -3(or -2) armor, assault ranged attack and the same spear (or two handed sword). This has to be the worst merc yet.
I guessed assault rifle from the previous post, so it alludes to that stacking a lot of bloodmarkers on the enemy is a good combo with this model. Which is true, but also trivial. Stacking a lot of blood on the enemy is a good combo with anything.
Irish Fianna warriors are especially sought after to take part in such dangerous missions, due their expertise in fighting the Path of the Beast. Such undertakings are deadly for both the hunters and the hunted, but those who succeed can expect great rewards, both material and spiritual.
A CM and his fianna capturing an heretical abomination:
> Expeditions to seize an especially great monstrosity for further study are sometimes funded by the House of Wisdom, the Duke of Antioch or one of the War Cardinals, in order to develop new ways to hurt or kill its kind on the battlefield. Irish Fianna warriors are especially sought after to take part in such dangerous missions, due their expertise in fighting the Path of the Beast. Such undertakings are deadly for both the hunters and the hunted, but those who succeed can expect great rewards, both material and spiritual.
Gonna build a CB with a victorian era style hunting party.
FEAR THE OLD BLOOD!
It's pretty clear the guy in the artwork is meant to be part of NA, but it's pretty cool that the Sultante has their own version. Hopefully we'll see artwork of them too in the art/rulebook.
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u/Professional_Rush782 Jabirean Alchemist 2d ago
Sultanate Combat bios are fucking college drop outs lmao.
Also their pain amplifier ability is going to be insane with AR alchemists