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Hot Take: Intranzia Fraye and Inquisitor Kroyle
Intranzia Fraye
TwoHorse: This week’s earlier reveals have built a lot of hype for what Intranzia might bring to the table. Game-warping out-of-phase shenanigans like Yarrick? Sweet movement tricks and real output like Wazdakka Gutsmek? Three abilities to choose from where one is clearly the right choice all the time and the others are irrelevant? Alas no, Intranzia Fraye is…something else entirely. Let’s start with the profile: At T7, 8W, with a 3+/4++/5+++ with the Vehicle and Walker keywords, she’s similar to Morvenn Vahl, trading a 2+ save for a 5+ Feel No Pain. This is the sort of modest durability that requires deliberate but not heavy commitment to remove. If your opponent wants her dead they can kill her, but it won’t happen by accident. Contrary to what we expected based on the Adepticon reveal, she can’t lead Mortifiers or anything else for that matter, so her statline and miracle dice are the only thing between her and your opponent’s ire. So how threatening is she? With 5(!) different ranged weapons, she’s got a lot of tools, and with wildly different profiles on those weapons, it’s not clear what she plans to use them for. Two heavy bolters, two heavy flamers, and melta missiles which are effectively a pair of krak grenade launchers with Melta 2 is good chaff-removal output, but she’s not a strong gun platform. The flamers and missiles want to fight within 12”, so despite the range of the heavy bolters she’s at her best when close to the enemy…. …but not too close. Her melee profile is terrible, borrowing Junith’s bonking stick with 4 swings at S6 AP2 2D, and another 4 extra attacks with her angry chair at S6 AP0 1D that hit at WS4. Intranzia Fraye has come to sit, not to hit. Fortunately she has some cool abilities to go with her anaemic output. A 6” battleshock aura at -1Ld every fight phase is backbreaking in some matchups and merely OK in others. Great utility if you were going to be up close anyway, but not reason enough to bring her on its own. Army-wide lethal hits against a single target for the whole turn? That’s excellent, but the range and visibility restrictions make it a bit tricky to use. High-volume Sisters shooting usually comes with the Torrent keyword, and hit rerolls in shooting are essentially nonexistent outside of Morvenn Vahl who doesn’t need the help, but if Fraye is going to help with shooting output she may slot nicely into Bringers of Flame. Realistically though, as hinted at by her Penitent keyword, where she really shines is alongside arco-flagellants in the dedicated detachment for Penitent units: …Hallowed Martyrs. With access to full hit rerolls through the Righteous Vengeance stratagem, a full unit of Arco-flagellants can reliably put 18 wounds onto your designated target before you even get to the wound roll. But wait, you might ask, isn’t Penitent Host the dedicated detachment for Penitent units? lol. lmao even. Would you rather your cool character sticky a point on death? Or come back to life and hold it anyway? “But Critical Hits on 5+ goes great with lethal hits!” you might say, before doing the math on full hit rerolls for a unit that hits on 4’s and weeping silently for what could have been. Alas, Penitent Host has many problems, but I don’t believe our new seated hero solves them on her own (although the 4+ Feel No Pain stratagem does work well on her, allowing you to do your best Custodes impression for 1CP). And therein lies the rub. Most Sisters melee units either already have Lethal Hits (Sacresants, Zephyrim), have another mechanic that requires you to play against type to benefit (Insidiants), or are already unplayable for other reasons (Repentia). Taking advantage of Intranzia Fraye will require building synergy into your list, but building around such a fragile utility piece seems risky, so if her points cost is reasonable she’s most likely to see play in Hallowed Martyrs, which has both the best survivability tools for her and the best synergy with other units. I fear the combination of rules and profile will be difficult to balance. There’s a lot happening between multi-profile shooting, anti-durability army rule, and awkward vehicle profile, so there’s a risk she lands too cheap for her rules or too expensive for her chassis. It’s good that her model is awesome because I’ll want her anyway, but at first glance she’s neither auto-take nor unplayable, and that’s the sweet spot if her price is reasonable.
Inquisitor Kroyle
Wings: Friday’s other Datasheet reveal brings us a new Inquisitorial Epic Hero with Lone Operative, a collection of characteristics that gives him about the broadest possible potential impact, as any Imperium army can slot him in.And they probably will! This is a powerful Datasheet that provides some great utility at baseline (albeit probably not as much as the Callidus Assassin he’s presumably competing with), but really blossoms in the right army.
Stat-wise, Kroyle is a solid utility/harassment piece. He’s fast, with 12” move and Scouts 6”, a great combo with Lone Operative for early play, and he’s OC2, which is unusual and extremely valuable for a lone character in that role, as it means he outright trumps enemy solo Characters if they’re fighting a skirmishing war over a point. He’s also modestly durable, with T4, 6W and 3+/4++ - still dies to anything serious, but not a stiff breeze. In terms of harassing the foe, he has a special sniper rifle that’s both very unique and extremely funny. This starts at S6 AP-2 D2 Anti-Monster 2+ with Precision, but each time it scores a hit, the Strength and Damage go up by 2, with the latter capping at 6. If you can find a shot turns one and two, that means by turn three this can start just blowing the heads smoove off enemy Leaders, and is a total nightmare for armies like Tyranids and Daemons because the random utility Character is suddenly hitting them with a gauss destructor. His melee is less exciting - not nothing but definitely not a model you want in a fight with anything sterner than some random chaff. He does also have Grenades, which is always extremely welcome.
The big potential pivot point for Kroyle is what happens after shooting something - his special ability, On My Signal, Fire, provides full Hit re-rolls to AGENTS OF THE IMPERIUM and IMPERIUM INFANTRY BATTLELINE units for the rest of the phase (not turn, sorry Custodes) after hit connects with a target. This obviously makes him an instant, slam dunk auto-take in the Imperialis Fleet Imperial Agents builds that have made a few waves recently, but does anything else get enough value there?
Yes - Recon Element Guard should have a field day with this guy, and combined with the arrival of Yarrick as another power piece, that lists stocks (already high) should be shooting up. The big squads there already hit harder than foes are expecting, and full hit re-rolls obviously amplifies that considerably. Outside that, things get a little harder, mostly because all the places you might consider dropping him already have decent sources of re-rolls. Bridgehead Strike? Already got re-roll 1s on units that are often hitting on 2s, no value. Marines? Oaths exists, and the place where Oaths doesn’t exist (Templars) need re-rolls for melee, not ranged. Bastion Task Force, kind of, maybe? Again, already has some built-in re-roll sources outside of Oaths, you can maybe see it working in the fun Salamanders Tactical Marine list? Custodes? It helps Custodian Guard spam builds pop off even harder on their one big shooting turn, but is that worth the slot over something else?
Surprisingly hard to find the perfect place for him outside the obvious two, is what I’m getting at. That doesn’t mean he won’t see any play - at the right price point, just the baseline value from the datasheet is pretty good, and were it not for the fact that Callidus Assassins have been inexplicably allowed to be ~25pts undercosted for multiple solid years, I’d be quite hot on him. I do low-key think that if he does get into general lists, the fact he’s OC2 might well be the deciding factor.
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