The Liturgy of Leshavit - Leshavult Faction Overview
The Leshavult is the third faction to be released in moonstone. Featuring predominantly Fauns, Animals and Spirits, they interact with the game in a completely new way. Modifying the arcane deck, using abilities that cost more energy than a model has and triggering catastrophes on purpose are just a few of the esoteric ways the cultists skew the game.
Resilience
Toughness within the Leshavult is generally below par. Evade stats are usually similar to Humans and Gnomes, but unlike the commonwealth, the Leshavult ordinarily don't carry armour. Two of the Leshavult who do have 'Armour' are Boris, the bunny summoner and the Jackalope. The Jackalope is appropriately 'Fluffy' reducing all incoming impact damage by -1. Whilst this often won't protect the oversized bunny in melee it'll helpfully deflect a few musket or pistol shots before it gets into melee. Similarly Boris' 'Shabby old coat' won't protect him from all damage. However, against certain adversaries and situations, such as Faerie arcane attacks, it will prove a reliable ability to improving his survivability.
Most, if any, resilience within the Leshavult continues to follow this pattern of protecting the character in a niche or specific way. The Revenant, for example, has one of the best pieces of tech to preserve his life in the entire game - he can't die. However good this is though, it's only useful if the enemy is actually trying to kill The Revenant. With no arcane, the ghoul is susceptible to all forms of arcane abilities and so is easy to control and damage. If a crafty opponent just seeks to paralyse him then they only need to do 5 wounds against the unarmoured, evade 0 Revenant to remove all his energy for future turns.
In contrast to The Revenant who can't be slain, models such as The Beast are sometimes killable, but maybe not worth killing or targeting. Targeting The Beast with arcane abilities, although easy with +1 evade, will restore 1 wd to The Beast and will generate +2 energy for him too. Furthermore, attacking him in melee will also grant these bonuses and presuming you moved into The Beast's melee to do this, any non-giant, non-troll aggressor will lose an energy for the trouble. Anya also presents an awkward situation like this, causing enemies to spend additional energy to use any action targeting her. Realistically though, if you're using Leshavult it will not be for their toughness, it will be for all the other bizarre ways they interact with the game.
Synergies and Catastrophes
Unlike toughness where the Leshavult are notably underwhelming, the cultists have no shortage of synergies within the faction. They also possess other bizarre tricks to help them along such as the ability to take advantage and make use of their catastrophes. One more obvious example of these is seen in Zorya, who can trigger friendly catastrophes on purpose with 'Visions of the future'. She also carries an example of why you may want to trigger catastrophes on purpose with 'Violent impulse'. Whilst catastrophes are normally noted for dealing the active character wounds or giving the opponent an advantage, this catastrophe pulses out a buff to everyone nearby, friendly or enemy. The key therefore with a lot of Leshavult models is to correctly position and time actions in order to either: trigger catastrophes on purpose to your advantage or to dissuade opponents from playing catastrophes when they correctly call your bluff.
Some more direct and simpler synergy is seen with the other 2 witches: Danica and Antonia. With their 'Link to the past/present/future' they each get some nice bonuses whilst the others are in play. These witches are also viable targets of Zorya's 'Visions of the future', as Antonia can use her 'Candy apples' catastrophe to pulse out magic damage and Danica can use both her catastrophes to supply models with more energy. Since Zorya also gets bonuses and gives bonuses with 'Link to the past/present/future' then it is likely you'll be taking her with these other 2 excellent catastrophe target models. The witches can therefore form the basis of a list on triggering catastrophes on purpose to energise their models and damage their opponents. They can even throw in The Revenant for an extra spirit to help with Danica's 'Meddle with fate' and another 'Visions of the future' for even more energy or damage as see's fit.
Similarly, Gloom brings his own synergies to a different subset of Leshavult models and also has a 'Good' catastrophe. For 2 energy Gloom can move any Animal 3" (friendly or enemy), which will help the mobility of your Animal troupe or impede an opponent's Animal. With this, Gloom is sure to find his way into all Animal based Leshavult lists. As mentioned, the faun wizard also carries an advantageous catastrophe with 'Smothering darkness'. With help from 'Visions of the future' or a lucky catastrophe, Gloom can suffer a wound to reduce a model's evade by -2. With this, high evade models such as the Jackalope can be protected from arcane abilities. 'Smothering darkness' is also useful as its primary function of a ranged damaging ability since the Leshavult generally don't have many damaging ranged actions and this is one of the few.
Energy
Another space where Leshavult excel is the ability to generate, manipulate and use energy. Brother Daniel can accomplish both of these in 'Look at the shiny thing' and 'The end is nigh'. Many Leshavult models, like Daniel and his 'The end is nigh', have abilities that exceed their base energy. In order to access these abilities, they thereby need another friendly model around to help them generate the additional energy. This is where Daniels, 'Look at the shiny thing' comes in use. Given the simple prerequisite of him holding a moonstone, another friendly model within 6" gains an additional energy at the start of every turn. One such target for this, as Daniel can't target himself, is Loubard who with an additional energy can make use of 'Righteous fury'. With this buff, Loubard will be sure to solidify his place as one of the biggest damage dealing models in Leshavult and perhaps even the game.
As well as Daniel, Kalista can also manipulate energy and make use of it in the form of a high cost ability. In contrast to Daniel, Kalista can only generate energy for herself by gaining +1 every time a character is slain. This energy can then be used to cast her premium 'Paroxysm' dealing large amounts of damage to and awkwardly repositioning many models. In addition to this Kalista also buffs nearby cultists and spirits and also brings a unique heal. This means she can comfortably slot into any troupe and should certainly be a consideration whilst learning the ropes of this otherwise complex faction.
Most models, however, usually just manipulate energy or use it effectively with Daniel and Kalista being the exception. Anya, for example, can make use of 'Remove necklace' for 4 energy to decrease her defense but hugely increase her offensive pressure. However, to achieve this, she will need some friendly Leshavult models around, such as a moonstone toting Daniel or a catastrophe prone Danica to give her the final point of energy required. With this Anya can transform and turn into a melee monster which will destroy all but the toughest models in the game. Chubs, on the other hand, does not possess a hugely expensive ability such as 'Remove necklace'. Instead, the faun carries an energy manipulation ability in 'Rouse' which allows him to energise another Faun or Animal. So unlike Anya, Chubs himself cannot become a monumental damage output model, but rather utilises his energy gifting abilities to turn other models into threats.
Stacking the Deck
Whilst these positives are all great, they've all in part been seen before in other models. The Firespitter, for example, loves taking advantage of catastrophes and Diana is fantastic at energy manipulation. Where the Leshavult are truely unique is there ability to interact with the arcane deck in completely new ways. Gwendoline has the most simplistic of all these abilities with 'Scry'. With this Gwendoline takes control of the top card of the arcane deck and places it next to her character card, removing it from the deck and then gaining use of this card for herself or others anytime. The uses and implications of these arcane deck manipulation abilities are very numerous.
For arcane manipulation models such as Gwendoline, one such use is banking the arcane card and guaranteeing a later arcane ability will work as intended. With some arcane abilities guaranteed to succeed with Gwendoline's 'Scry'd card, tactics and turns can be planned out in greater length and detail with the foreknowledge backup plans won't be necessary if an arcane ability fails. Say you managed to scry a pink 3. With this, you'd be able to guarantee 'Ethereal Lure' succeeding, even if you drew no pink cards whilst casting it. Alternatively, a pink 3 out of the arcane deck could also be used offensively to disadvantage your opponent. An enemy Shabaroon will have his chance of 'Transconbobulate' severely reduced if 1 of the 2 cards he can cast it with is out of play. Furthermore, the Shabaroon player will also find it impossible to bluff with a pink 3 as you will always be able to perfectly call their bluff.
Whilst removing a single card like this will be undoubtedly impactful, removing further cards with the likes of Danica or Kavanagh can be game changing. Continuing the earlier situation, Kavanagh using 'Juggling fate' and discovering the blue and green 3 can remove the blue 3 from the deck to disable 'Transconbobulate' for the rest of the game, whilst putting the green 3 on the bottom of the deck to guarantee a next activation 'Goblin luck' will fail too. This is, of course, just one specific example. Whilst removing cards according to their numeric value is powerful against specific models the Leshavult can also remove cards according to colour. This too can prove devastating against the right troupes, such as against a faerie list primarily focussed on dealing damage with pink arcane abilities.
