Anacharis Scoria

A Remembrancer portrait of the Vodian Magister, and the only picture we have of him.

Anacharis Scoria, AKA The Xanophane Tyrant, the Fallen Master, Puncher of Cats, Kicker of Puppies, Lord of the Nine Cohorts, and The Apostate Magister, was a Dark Mechanicum Archmagos during and after the Heresy. Introduced in Horus Heresy book 6, Retribution, he has an annoyingly dark and mysterious past, but was originally a Magos Dominus of the Vodian Consistory, the chief enforcers of the Machine Cult on the Forge World of Xana II. Later, he was apparently cast down from his position and imprisoned, probably for tech-heresy (which is impressive, since Xana was a pretty damn shady place already).

However, after the Loyalist forces — composed of a Dark Angel and Blackshield strike force — launched an attack on the planet, Scoria escaped and kitted himself out with every cool gadget he could find. Shortly after he became the ruler of the Forge World, eventually warping it into the Eye of Terror at the close of the Heresy where it became the first Hell-Forge.

In 40k?

Currently his whereabouts are completely unknown, but if the glorious bastard happens to still be alive, he's in all probability still chilling in his forge, building daemonbots and attempting to convince his subordinates to have a little class and stick fewer spikes on everything (it is suspected by many of /tg/ that the spikes exist to increase the surface area to feel more of the warp overtaking them).

On the Tabletop

Anacharis Scoria

Points	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	Ld	Sv	Type	Composition
275	5	5	5	6*	4 (5 with Abeyant)	5	3 (4 with Abeyant)	10	2+/3++	Infantry (Character)	1 (Unique)
Wargear
Machinator Array +1T Night Vision 1 Flamer and 1 Inferno Pistol May shoot both of these, or one and another ranged weapon. Make 2 additional S+1 AP2 Melee, Unwieldy, Shred, Armourbane attacks. +2 to Repair rolls. 2 Archaeotech Pistols 12" S6 AP3 Pistol, Master-crafted Vodian Sceptre Two-Handed AP2 Melee weapon. FAQ'ed to S+2, AP2, Armourbane. Any model suffering an unsaved wound/losing a hull point to the Vodian Sceptre suffers D3 more automatic wounds/loses one more hull point for each unsaved wound/lost hull point. Extra wounds do not carry over.
Options
Xanathite Abeyant 40 pts +1 W +1 A It Will Not Die Hardened Armour Re-roll armour saves against blasts and templates. Move Through Cover Very Bulky Photon Thruster 48" S6 AP2 Heavy 2, Gets Hot!, Blind, Lance May be fired in addition to other normal shooting attacks.

*Includes the +1T from his Machinator Array.

His model. Fun fact, his base is larger than the blast template.

Anacharis has slightly improved stats over a regular kitted out Archmagos Dominus, picking up Weapon Skill and Initiative 5, but that's not anywhere near all. He has all the regular Archmagos Dominus special rules, along with Eternal Warrior, Relentless, Feel No Pain, and Adamantium Will. He has his own Cybertheurgy power, which requires a test on LD8 to use, affects an entire unit of battle automata and grants them +1I as well as re-rolling To Hit and failed charges. However when it wears off, each bot rolls a D6, and loses a wound on a 1. Armed with two Archaeotech Pistols, as well as a flamer and Inferno pistol mounted on his Machinator he's fairly shooty, especially with his special wargear below. He can (and should) be mounted on his scorpion body, the Xanathite Abeyant, which grants him +1 Wound and Attack, It Will Not Die, Hardened Armour (Reroll armour saves vs blasts and templates) and Move Through Cover, but makes him Very Bulky. Also gives him a Photon Thruster which he can fire in addition to his normal shooting attacks (a total of 5 guns, 3 of which he can shoot at a time and most of which are AP3/2. For only 40 pts, always take it.

He also unlocks a nice package deal, The Homonculex - his own customized Arlatax Battle-automata which basically gets Paragon of Metal for free, but if Anacharis dies it is removed from play alongside him (and since Scoria can be a T6 5W 2+/3++ FnP(5+) IWND Eternal Warrior - if you managed to get this guy killed things have gone tits up anyway).

Unfortunately the main reason he's taken no longer exists. Before the FAQ his personal close combat weapon, the Vodian Sceptre, was the most overpowered melee weapon in the entire game. It had no Strength value, instead each hit inflicts D3 AP2 automatic Wounds (that don't allow FnP or IWND) to the unit he's attacking (or D3 penetrating hits). This could spill over to other models, so he could wade into combat and just erase everything that wasn't a super-heavy stepping on him. As a bonus, he could and did kill Primarchs with this weapon while costing much less. Anacharis had the distinction of being the most dangerous man in the entire game because even the few Primarchs who could take him on dealt less overall damage to everyone else (in close combat). Those two were Magnus and Russ, Magnus due to insane levels of psychic fuckery, Russ due to his bullshit wargear (though we can't really complain about bullshit wargear a paragraph after talking about the cheese that is the Vodian Sceptre). The other Primarchs were dealt with in three or four rounds of combat, and even Horus went down to this monster. The Custodes Tribune could also beat his head in, but that's because he was equally as bullshit as Scoria (trading ridiculous damage output for ridiculous durability).

Sadly the Vodian Sceptre was FAQ'd to just be S+2, AP2 and causing D3 automatic wounds whenever it inflicts an unsaved wound, but only to the model which suffered the first wound. In the case of vehicles, they only lose an additional hull point, and only if his attack causes them to lose a hull point in the first place (though it has Armourbane now so that shouldn't be an issue). His days of deleting entire units are over and so he can also now be tar-pitted (keep him the fuck away from thralls).

Aside from large units he does have some other weaknesses. The most obvious one is that he is NOT fearless, so he can be swept after a bad round (though he is stubborn to help mitigate that). Join him to some battle-automata who are, and make sure to cast Rite of the Beast. He is slow as all hell, only a basic infantry model, and will have difficulty closing with the targets he actually wants to fight. This is really annoying, since the Mechanicum has no assault transport, but you can join him to some Vorax and Outflank him into the enemy backfield if it's that important. Also this is one of the main factors that stops him being OP as all hell, so suck it up. Watch out for Strength D weaponry and Stomp attacks, too. Both can one-shot him on a lucky 6, so the bane of his existence is Imperial Knights. He stands a chance against the ones with no D-chopper, but even then better use something else, since the explosion can still easily kill your 315 pt HQ and his Arlatax pet along with him.

Anacharis VS the Primarchs:

Primarch fighting, while fun to see, isn't a very competitive thing to do as it'll usually tie up both for the entire game without either of them dying (Although slightly less so with Scoria, due to the amount of damage he puts out). With that in mind this section is how Anacharis fares against the Primarchs Mathhammer wise. Please note that all the various abilities are taken into accounts when possible and the match-ups assume the Primarch and Scoria are the only ones involved in the fighting, so various abilities like Angron's "The Butcher's Nails" and Rampage do not provide any bonuses. In essence, the fights are supposed to be in a "Vacuum" for simplicity, but notes are added to make things clearer in particular instances. Also all of the combatants use their most powerful weapons (because why have a contest if you don't do your best?) so naturally Scoria is equipped with the Xanathite Abeyant. Also, don't ever forget that he comes with a Machinator for that ever useful +2 attacks at S6 Ap 2 Shred, even if Unwieldy. I've left the Machinator out of every fight but the close ones, though, for simplicty. Also, since he is LD10, he won't fail Fear, barring with Curze.

• Scoria VS Angron
  • Angron Round 1: hits 5.333 times, wounds 0.888 times with ID and 3.555 without, 1.09 times after saves and FnP and IWND will take that down to 0.923 wounds.
  • Angron Round 2+: hits 4 times, wounds 0.666 times with ID and 2.666 without, 0.81 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.643 at the start of the next turn.
  • Scoria hits 2 times, wounds 4 times, 2 times after saves.
  • Angron gets totally wrecked in three rounds, even if his dramatic damage output can put some hurt on the Magos.

• Scoria vs Mortarion
  • They attack at the same time.
  • Mortarion hits 3.333 times. Wounds 2.2222 times. Which is downed to 0.7333 (3++ invuln save) wounds and to 0.484 wounds after IWND rolls.
  • Scoria hits 2 times. Wounds 2d3 times (so 4 times on average). that's translated to 2 wounds. His machinator array hits once, wounds 0.55 times and causes. 0.25 wounds, downed to 0.12 after the re-rollable IWND.
  • After 4 rounds of combat the mighty reaper is downed by one of the founding fathers of the dark mechanicum, who will have lost 1.32 wounds out of 5. Note that there is some argument over whether Mortarion's Prenatural Resilience rule works on Scoria's scepter, and if so the Magos would lose on Round 9, needing 11 to kill the Reaper. Hopefully this is answered in an FAQ or something, but discuss it with your opponent for now.

• More coming, Scoria is fiddly to Mathhammer due to his FNP, which means the Murderous Strike on many weapons requires two save resolutions.