Horus Heresy 2e Review: Archmagos Draykavac

Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4.5/5 stars. Rounded down. Note quite in the excellent tier, but close.

Background.

An archmagos who was fairly unheard of at the start of the civil war, all that would change at the onset of hostilities. On the Forge World of Cyclothrathe, he conquered using his forces, added to them, and committed all manner of atrocity along the way. A traitor through and through. 

Strengths.

What stands out to me here is his melee ability to inflict 2d6 wounds at AP2 minus the toughness characteristic thanks to his liquifractor. This is simply nasty and will melt away enemy characters with unbridled ease. 

His cruel taskmaster trait is a bit average in the sense of letting you pass a Ld test by removing a single model. He can also be taken as a troops choice in a Questoris army which is kinda neat, and worrying for any loyalists out there. Meanwhile his djinn skein grants BS+1 to a unit he joins which is solid but the stand out is to re-roll deep strike scatter when he can sight the intended landing spot. This is fairly unique in the game!

He comes with a host of mechanicum special rules like battlesmith and so forth and is, of course, a Cybertheurgist. I like the preferred enemy: infantry rule on him as well. He really will melt away strong opposition given the opportunity. His stat line backs this up with a rather solid array of figures which can be boosted in the T and W department by purchasing him an Abeyant upgrade which to my mind is worth the points cost increase for the stats alone. 

Weaknesses.

Not too many realistically. He is a HQ traitor choice and will certainly liquefy enemy troops and characters given the opportunity. You just have to get him into the right position on the battlefield is all. 

Builds. 

Worth taking the Abeyant upgrade in my opinion for the stat line boost alone.