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Is Festus the Leechlord worth taking?

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#1 ·
Hey.

I've been toying with the idea of using Festus in my 1000 point force, but i'm considering if he really is worth taking.
For the same amount of points i can take a:
Lvl. 2 chaos sorcerer with the MoN and the rod of torment. (i think)

So i'm just wondering what everyone elses veiws are? :)

Proodle.
 
#2 ·
Do you use Marauders in your 1000pts list? Because if you do think about a block of 5x4 with MoK and Flails no need for amour with Festus they get a regen save of 5 and that is what you would have with sheild and LA anyway. Then not to mention this unit has the ability to Tarpit and or kill just about any unit due to the fact he gives them Poison attacks. I have used Festus and he has always worked great for me, dont forget he has a 4+regen sv himself. I almost always default to the Nurgle spell 1 due to the fact he can easily kill a character before the unit even hits combat.
 
#3 ·
I love Festus. There are a ton of great ways to use him. My personal fav is still w/ a unit of Khorne Warriors w/ additional hand weapons. That's a poop ton of poison attacks, right there.
 
#5 ·
Festus gets poked in his fat, unarmored belly. Thank you Errata, only unarmored man-sized guy in the book (besides the base marauder I guess).

Festus also has to challenge the turn after your champion dies. Festus will also likely get poked by RnF while your champion is in a challenge. Either way, you have a dead fat man on your hands. And there's nothing worse than watching a fat man weep.

5+ Regen is nice for the approach to CC, and he's pretty much the same price as any other Level 2 Nurgle Sorc, but don't expect to maintain that save in CC. Go into a game knowing (not thinking, knowing) that your opponent will kill him. After that, it's a matter of asking whether he's worth the points. A caster that gives a 5+ Regen may very well be.
 
#7 ·
Theres some tricky stuff you can do with festus, but there are a few problems with him.

The persuit is a really big one, I tend to find that units have a good chance to rally when you don't catch them.

As far as putting festus into a unit of flails or khorne hand weapond, I don't think it's that helpful. You still get saves vs poisoned attacks, and khorne with hand weapons are already a match for anything alive. Marauders with flails don't really need help wounding during the first round of CC.

Also curse of the Leper is not that amazing. It's a remains in play spell and tends to get dispelled before it does any real dammage.

No Arcane items or chaos armor(big whoop), Chaos has pretty good equpment for sorcerers, festus gets none of it. Depending on how you want to feild your magic this could make a big diffrence.

The only real question for feilding festus is what Arcane items do you want in your list
If you can take all your arcane items on other wizards take festus, but if you find you start using hero choices for item mules it's probobly best to leave festus in his labs.
 
#10 ·
I think he is worth it.

How much would you pay for a banner that gives a 5+ regenerate and poisoned attacks?

Yes, troops will flee and rally, but, at 2D6 (and often 3D6) you will just charge them the next turn (at 2D6, the ennemy will flee on average at 7, while your footsloggers will move at a minimum of 9, 10,5 on average).

If you don't have a better target already.

The argument that Curse of the Leper will be dispelled before it does anything good is a false one, in my opinion. That just means that your opponent will have to waste dispell dice on it and leave the field open for another of your great spell. Just make sure to cast Buboes before you cast Curse. And you can always opt to cast only Buboes with 2 dice. And 2 dice Buboes seems to be a great favorite in the circle of WoC players.

All in all, I don't think Festus is better than other sorcerers, but he brings options to the table that are only available through him.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Hey in response to the initial question I think Festus is a great character to take. Most of the points have been pretty close to my thoughts (especially running him with frenzied warriors to give them 4 poisoned attacks each...)

The only thing is that I would probably not run festus as the only character in the army. I run him at 1500 pts usually with a lvl 2 Tzeentch caster. He adds survivability to my unit of warriors w/ additional handweapons but is relatively weak caster if acting alone (With only 4 dice you'll struggle to cast both buboes and curse of the leper).

Normally at 1000 pts I'd only run one character, and as such I don't think Festus is a great choice. But if you're running two then he can definitely act well in support of the caster and a unit of warriors or something.

And if you're interested after Uziel's (looks really nice by the way - very nurgle) here's my attempt at a conversion, although not painted yet:



 
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