Nephilim Nursery: Basic Principles for Growth

[Mastershake]

Preface: When I start a game I generally look for competitive builds, but I often don't look online. The internet is so full of dross, finding useful information is difficult and to top it off, theory and practice are often very different. With that in mind, I set out to see what kind of mileage I could get out of one of my favorite models, Nekima and the grow list was the first one that came up (the lilitu spam was the second, but that's another circle of hell for another time). I do find it amusing when I see posts about it being good that someone isn't trying a Blood Factory. Compared to some of the stupidty Neverborn can throw out a few extra SS worth of melee specialists seems pretty tame. Experience trying out different builds and models and putting them on the table has taught a few simple lessons:

1. Blood From the Stone is a last resort- Yeah it seems cool, Blood Counters with no thought or waiting and no random factor, but a 2-1 trade is terrible especially when those same two stones could generate 3 blood counters just by hiring a living or undead model. It's even worse when you're dipping into Lilith's presonal stash. She doesn't have Armor, Hard to Wound or anything fancy, she often relies on using a SS for that first Df flip to keep her out of harm's way. She also needs the SS for casting transposition since the last thing you want to do is waste a high mask for your opponent to simply cheat out of it and targeting friendly models is not always an option.

2. 3 Counters for 1 model is the trade you want- It sounds obvious, but most people making blood factories forget that models with the Drain Blood ability are important to have around. It's biggest reason a Desperate Merc turned into a terror tot in my list. Lilith can only Drain Blood once per turn and the timing doesn't quite work out if you try to use one of the growing models for it. The counter also ends up in the wrong place, ideally as many as possible should be on the Shaman. So the first counter comes from Bood Sense, the second from Drain Blood and the third comes when a Shaman uses the model's Corpse Counter to cast Inject Blood or Taint Blood with the Bloody Mess trigger (which coincidentally also requires a Mask). So the Shaman effectively "filters" your last Blood Counter. Ideally all sacrificed models are BTB with the Shaman so he doesn't have to waste AP moving to pick them up. This also means if you're using a tot as fuel, any Blood Counters it got from draining Blood will get picked up by the Shaman. The reason you want Blood Counters on the Shaman has less to do with the growing and more to do with subsequent turns. A Shaman can steal a Blood Counter from anyone to use Blood Magic, but he needs to have them himself to use Inject Blood or Taint Blood, so if you have some healing that needs done or models that need to be made into Nephilim the Shaman can't use that coutner on that young Nephilim. Importantly, Blood Magic can also be done by damaging a model, which he can then heal if he has a blood counter, so you can get all of his buffs with one counter as long as you have the mask to cheat for Bloody Mess or Nekima goes first.

3. Location, Location, Location- All of the Counters for Mature have to come from the same place, so in a perfect world having one model with all of them is what you want, but more realistically you generally just want the Shaman to have as many as possible since unused counters can be used later. It's important to remember this because having four Blood Counters on as many models won't get you a Mature Nephilim.

4. Nekima AND the Shaman- Seeing lists with either or always kinda confused me. Setting aside why you wouldn't want both of these models, it's really inefficient or just plain bad. Without Nekima, the cards needed to cheat your way through a grow process do exist, but there are only a handful in the deck and you'd have to get absurdly lucky to even have it go off once. The cards you need are simply too high and, in the case of Grow, too suit specific to get with any reliability. I've done enough battle box games trying to Grow on the fly to know it's just painful. Nekima without the Shaman loses the critical aspect of filtering Corpses to blood, so you're out 2 Blood Counters, enough to make a Mature and easily worth that paltry 6SS investment. Nekima to get the Grows and Matures off, and the Shaman to increase body-blood efficiency.

Keep this in mind and your Terror Tots will grow up big and strong and beat face before you know it.