Overthinking Vexmor

When Vexmor was released I quickly declared that this fighter will soon replace Fomoroid Crusher as the “default” chaos ally and that Vex will be way stronger and more popular than beloved FOMO. The opinion that Vexmor is close to Annihilator Prime – strong, but far from broken quickly gained a lot of popularity, especially after being repeated by most of content creators, but I still think that Vex will soon become one of the most feared (and hated) models in the game. In my mind balance-wise Vex is closer to Chimera than to Annihilator Prime and I will try to explain why I think so in this short article.

My main point is that 180 points (This article will ONLY speak about Vex with +1 attack blessing, which is already included in the picture above) is extremely cheap for what Vexmor offers and what it offers is extremally powerful – almost every fighter that will finish movement within threat range (8” with double) of yet inactivated Vex (and with her being cheaper than all other titans this isn’t unreasonable assumption) will get killed next round if Vex wins Initiative. It might seem like a bold statement, but here me out. Finishing within Vex threat range will mean that she can move and swing once (most likely without onslaught due to her reliance on +3” move double), which will result in 5+ damage in 88,9% of situations. Next round she will add to it 2 attack actions empowered by Onslaught (not rolling Straight is also a reasonable assumption) and this attack actions have 93,6% of doing 15+ damage (remember about highly probable 5+ damage from previous round), 81,24% of doing 20+ damage and “only” 61% for doing 25+ damage. In my book access to this level of damage for 180 points on a highly durable fighter that doesn’t require other fighters for mobility and damage boost is a steal. Vex has a deserved reputation of being inconsistent and when using single attack action its certainly true, that’s why its not the best tool for clearing chaff (especially with 12/15 wounds, as she has only 19,4% for a kill without Onslaught and 49% with Onslaught). Because of this clear weakness Vexmor will not reach the “new Chimera” status, but I still believe that at 180 points a fighter is allowed to have weaknesses and still be great.

Listbuilding around Vexmor is a bit tricky as she is very dice hungry and I agree that having Vex as a “plan B” or the second great thing the list does is the best use the deamon, but I also can see a place for Vex, as the main threat in a list in a horde warband. I believe community haven’t cracked the code on optimal Vex list yet, but I believe that the event happening this weekend in Norway (Summercry – you can check it out on Wartally.com) might provide a solution for “how to listbuild around Vex question”. The list that inspired this article was created by a creative player that is also a TO – Krister (this is how he is known on a Warcry discord). Before diving into his list I want to give some more credit to the guy as I believe he was also the first to finish very high in standings with Gorewarden in the list (3-0 in 2024-Q2 Norcry).

Krister list:

Varanguard with Daemonforged Blade +1 dmg blessing
Vexmor +1 attack blessing
Great Bray-Shaman (145pts, Hero)
6x Gor with Pair of Gor Blades

In this list Krister found a solution to all 3 problems that Vexmor has: slow movement, bad matchup against “dwarf like” chaff and inconsistence with single attack action. With Varanguard and this many Gors the speed of the list is quite impressive and almost nothing can compete in killing dwarves with the damage blessed Varanguard. The third hero in the list is the special ingredient that was missing in the Vex soup – Pull ability of the Great-Bray Shaman makes Vex way more dangerous as thanks to it Vex will have to use less move actions and will do double attack activation more often. It will also make it easier not to overextend with the deamon as despite its tankiness it isn’t unkillable. Finally access o pull makes nets less effective, as you can still pull enemies towards a netted fighter.

I believe that the core of the list (Varanguard, Vex and PULL ability) will have a big influence on the tournament meta and “pull-Vex” will be something that has to be considered during tournament preparation. I really like that you can basically run this list in 2 factions, as you can swap all Gors to Marauders and still have a great list (that is even a little stronger, assuming your meta isn’t dominated by Grave Guards, Ardboyz and Longbeards).

S2D variant

Varanguard with Daemonforged Blade +1 dmg blessing
Vexmor +1 attack blessing
Great Bray-Shaman (145pts, Hero)
6x Chaos Marauder with Barbarian Flail

Both Gors (-1/-0 when attacked) and Marauders (heal 3 wounds when attacked) have great defensive reactions, but I prefer the S2D one as it is stronger in chaff vs chaff scenario and with Vex in the list you want to have titan v titan and chaff v chaff fights all over the battlefield. The biggest advantage of Marauders over Gors is that in missions when numbers matter (and not only there) they can hide behind their bigger T6 friends and still attack over their shoulder due to 3” range, so at the same time you never have to engage enemy fighters with your chaff, but you can also use your big guys to tank for them without sacrificing their attacks. Lets consider what further changes we can make to the list.

As we are already in S2D we now can consider replacing GBS for another fighter with Pull ability and for extra 10 points we can replace Shaman + Marouder to Ephi + Starefish and split the “magic missile” ranged attack (that now has S4) and the pull ability to separate fighters. The problem is getting this extra 10 points and I see two ways of getting it. First and probably worse way is to decrease the “bodycount” and for example replace 2 marauders with a 110 points Chaos Warrior, to have a T6 tank in every deployment group. The other way would be to remove the blessing from Varanguard, if we do this there are 20 points waiting to be reinvested and we can try to make our PULL source more durable (+4 wounds on Starefish), improve the magic missle of Ephi to S5 which will increase the list damage against T4 or add +1 Strength to Varanguard to have better damage against T5.

The most obvious place where people will want to put Vexmor is Horns of Hashut and the change to “pre FAQ standard” is replacing a FOMO to blessed Vexmor and the final result might look like:

Horns

Ruinator Alpha with Heavy Flail
Vexmor +1 attack blessing
2x Demolisher with Flamehurler
4x Shatterer
165 points package

I’m not sure which version is the best, as this depends on the battleplans, but in the 165 points package you can put

• GBS and 20 points of blessings
• 2 additional Shatterers and wild dice blessing
• Remove one Shatterer and add Ephi + Starefish
• Shatterer and +4 wounds on everything but leader
• Skabbik
• Vashtiss and wild dice blessing
• Anything else, as I’m sure I missed great options

At the end lets try to quickly figure out how the “Vex horde” variant could look like and to make a nice structural comeback to the first list from article lets base it on BoC again.

Vex Horde

Vexmor +1 attack blessing
Great Bray-Shaman (145pts, Hero)
11x Gor with Pair of Gor Blades

It certainly will be strong in some environments, but I think we can all agree that it will not be the most fun list to play (from both sides of the table).

Good luck to Krister on Summercry tomorrow (my money is on you, but my heart is with Magnus ;). As always I hope you found something helpful in my text or at least enjoyed the read. I will try to put articles here more often now and the next one will most likely be about Seraphon or tournament formats (depending on which one I will finish first – you can let me know which one interest you more in a comment here or on Discord/Reddit/Facebook). Thanks for sticking to the end, BYE.