http://museonminis.com/forums/index.php?topic=3731.0
I have been incredibly busy of late, I'm temporarily moving out to the middle of no where although that was unexpectedly delayed another week. That said I had 5+ hours of driving today and I spent most of it thinking about Cephalyx.
First Impressions
They look like they will hit hard but die easily and find strength in numbers. The Agitators look absolutely essential to the list, I can't see ever taking less than the maximum force allowance at 50 points. The Wrecker is the only monstrosity that jumps out at me. The Subduer doesn't look bad, quake is an excellent ability and it gives the list some extra tools against menoth but to be honest I'm probably going to be playing this alongside an Earthbreaker list so that isn't particularly important to me. Pistol Wraiths are an amazing addition. The theme force will be interesting too since the contract is already so restrictive. Speaking of that the lack of options really restricts the decisions you need to make in list building. One Wrecker or two? Min mind benders or max? There is however one particularly important decision which I have put some preliminary thought into and that is what Merc unit do you take? You can only have one which is really annoying. I suspect the theme force may allow more. I have some ideas on what I may take though:
Croes
So this one is the obvious one. They aren't going to be in your other list. Because they are awful. However with telekinsis and rampager they will kill the shit out of living warbeasts. They still die a lot easier than I want out of a 12 point unit though and are of limited utility against warmachine. Or more correctly are outclassed even with telekinesis by the next option when playing against warmachine. They still have ranged attacks (though RNG 10 unfortunately) so they still bring some utility to the table for the contract.
Nyss Hunters
Nyss with advance deploy, tough and fearless. Seems pretty legit. Also they get deceleration and help your lack of ranged problems. Straight amazing.
Tactical Arcanist Corps
So this is the option I was thinking about the most. Advance deploy is really fricken good on this unit and there is a lot of fragile shit in a cephalyx army that really wants a cloud wall in front of it in order to stay alive. All the overlords are essential and protected by Sac Pawn and deceleration neither of which work against magic attacks. Also you can drop cloud and then telekinesis the dwarves back behind them too which is pretty neat. Especially early game when you have bugger all else to do with your focus. I'm not sure if it's worth using your one slot up for these guys but it is the most intriguing of the choices and one I will definitely try.
Alexia Ciannor and the Risen
Pros - shit ton of living models to get corpses from. Decel keeps her alive pretty well and there are a ton of threat extenders. Cons - no damage buffs. You have a psuedo hit buff in telekinesis and you have hex blast though so you get close to having damage buffs. AD becomes a bit of a trap though but tough Risen are sweet.
Aiyana and Holt
So this was the first unit I thought of when I saw on the video that you could add a Merc unit with a dominator. Magic weapons are abundant in this faction however the net launcher is not magical. Add to that Thexis lacks a damage buff and has troops/monstrosities with less than impressive numbers in the P+S box, he is pretty reliant on agitators, Aiyana and Holt also help with that. A bit. I'm actually least excited about them but they still warrant a mention.
Boomhowlers
They may have guns but at RNG 8 and RAT 4 I'll stick to overlord sprays if I need ranged attacks that badly. They main thing they add is not dying. The cephalyx look designed to die in droves just hopefully smashing their opponents apart first or with their remaining numbers. Having a unit with some staying power may be particularly valuable. Maybe. I wish Thexis had a way to increase their combat potential.
Dannon Blythe and Bull
I'm just fucking with you
Forge Guard
There are a lot of range extenders in this list and Decel takes them to ARM 20 which is pretty good against small arms fire. With tough and AD they look pretty good and they kill stuff without needing Agitators which may give a lot of flexibility to the army.
Nothing else has me particularly excited. Pirates minus solos, halberdiers minus cav, High Shields and the like don't particularly appeal. It's possible I've missed an important unit, I was thinking all this while driving and while I have had a quick glance I don't see anything else that jumps out.
