Hobby Update: Varangur Jabberwock

This guy has been a long time coming, likely close to 2 years. The model is from Reaper, and I'm pretty sure I bought this around the time I started painting up my Varangur? I just never got around to hobbying on him... Poor neglected monster. Well, here he is now: the Jabberwock!

Just how I like my fantasy monsters. With half a dozen arms and covered in blood.

The Varangur have several monster options. The Cavern Dweller is the most expensive, and is a had-hitting combat enthusiast; the Devourer is a great all-round monster with average stats and even a possible breath attack to solidify it's middle of the road status. The cheapest of the three Varangur monsters is the Jabberwock,and it's odd.

The Jabberwock does continue sliding down the combat effectiveness scale a bit. It loses Strider, and prior to Clash of Kings 2019, had less attacks than its monstrous compatriots, at 4, which is downright unintimidating. However, Clash of Kings 2019 ups the attacks from 4 to 8, to make the Jabberwock a little better right from the start of the game, though arguably a still little worse overall in combat, relative to the other monster options.

However, the Jabberwock has the special rule Feeding Frenzy, which is a phenomenally cool rule, giving the monster extra attacks equal to the amount of damage on the unit being attacked.

Feeding Frenzy plays with an integral game mechanic: damage. Damage is obviously important and integral to the game, but aside from Nerve checks, the amount of damage generally isn't. Whether my regiment of Shield Wall has 4 damage or 40, it still has a static attack value, etc. The rule encourages the Varangur player to play cautiously with the monster in the early turns, so that in later turns it can gorge itself on the battlefield's wounded, gaining bonus attacks and doing far more damage than a 140 pt unit should. Very cool!

I'm still arguably a noob, but the only other thing in the game (that I am away of, anyways) to mess with the damage mechanic is the spell Blood Boil, introduced with Clash of Kings 2017, which gives you magic dice equal to the damage on a unit as you magically assault it with Piercing 1 attacks.

I wasn't tuned in to the competitive "scene" when this spell launched, but I've read it was contentious. Clash of Kings 2019 bumps the spell cost up to 30 points and moves the spell to "Legendary" status, limiting it to a single caster per side. While I wasn't turned into competitive matches, I did glance at the forums, but don't remember seeing this too often. I don't know how prevalent Blood Boil was, prior to the current update but the move suggests they want to dial it back a bit.

All in all, the Jabberwock has fascinated me for a while; it's a shame it's taken me so long to get him assembled and painted up. Now that it's finished, the Jabberwock is definitely going in my next Varangur list. Feeding Frenzy is a really cool rule and I can't wait to explore it more.