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The first gargantuan model reviewed is the Trik, even though it’s really just three heavies on a single base, trying to deceive us all into thinking they’re a single model. Honestly I’d probably like them more if they were actually three different models, but I digress.

Our serpentine gargantuan is� hmm, is an interesting combination of rules. It’s simultaneously got some of the best aspects of its weight class, but also has some of the problems, resulting in a model that’s settling somewhere in the middle, but can be usually counted right above the average.

When it works, it really works, but when it doesn’t, you can be frustrated at how many points you spent on it.

Base Rules and Stats � Rating: C+

I can already hear the knives and pitchforks being sharpened. Yes, I know it has Rapid Healing, and yes, I know it’s immune to Grievous Wounds as a gargantuan. No, I don’t think that’s nearly a big a deal as many others do, but we’ll get to that.

The Trik comes in with the standard depressing gargantuan attack profile of 6/6, though unlike many others it can help itself in that regard thanks to freeze and slam options off of its weapons. Speedwise we see yet another 6, meaning it’s reasonably quick for its size, and has the standard Unstoppable and Bulldoze to help out a bit.

Fury is only 4, which is� a huge problem given how many attacks it has and the cost of its available animi. Yes, it has a lot, but yes, you really want them boosted to get the most out of the thrity-plus points your spending on this gut. Both spell options costing 2 is a further hindrance as I said, meaning this stat is the biggest limiter on your Trik’s turn to turn effectiveness.

Defensively we’re at an 11/19 with 50 hitpoints, along with Rapid Healing. Now, that defense is actually pretty good for a gargantuan, meaning bad attack rolls will actually miss, but Rapid Healing is� well, it’s basically d3 extra armor, provided the attack doesn’t kill the Trik and breaches its armor. Yes, I know it isn’t the best comparison since it’s a heal, meaning you can keep aspects online to the bitter end, but for the purpose of my argument it’s close enough.

On average, Rapid Healing basically means a Trik can be considered ARM 21 against most attacks, which is respectable, but that 50 hp is on the lower end for its weight bracket works against its durability. While you can use Mortal Fear and Dragon’s Blood to bump that defense up higher, both can be worked around or outright ignored by pretty much every Mk4 army, and those times I’ve put it on the table I’ve found the Trik to be very fragile for its points.

Head and Tail

Right, so, we’ve got three different snakes, each with two different head options along with two different tail options. Some are, in my opinion, better than others, but most are respectable, though the very strange way the points are set up means it’s almost impossible to judge them based on those values.

I’m going to break the Trik apart into it’s three component types: Arcane, Range, and Magic, and go over them in that fashion.

Arcane Options

The Eyeless Head is the costlier of the two by three full points. It bring Eyeless Sight, and the Force Wall animus: a 2 cost spell that gives Force Barrier to a friendly model/unit. This is an utterly fantastic animus that the Shadowflame can’t get enough of, massively boosting the survivability of any model/unit it’s put on against shooting.

Seriously, DEF 16 Quickfangs are obnoxious for enemy infantry, same for Lashers, and even Death Dealers actually arrive if they’re DEF 15� and that all stacks with concealment and cover. It’s stupid good.

Attack wise, the Eyeless Head brings in both a ranged and a melee attack. The Bite is nothing exceptional, a RNG 3, POW 17 attack with no rules, but you’re taking this head for the ranged attack: Telekinetic Burst. This is a RNG 8 magical POW 14 that causes an automatic d6 slam in any direction you choose.

Pardon my language, but that is fucking insane. Yes, it can be hampered by anti-ranged tech, but it is still one of the best guns in the entire game for that effect. You can slam enemies into each other, knock down casters, slam them toward you to get them into range of other models, move them away from objectives�Rating: SThe Many Eyed Head is the cheaper option. The animus is Mage Static, which is� a niche effect and a very costly one at 2 fury. Enemies who cast spells while they are within 10� of the Trik have to pay 1 extra cost and lose 3 range. It’s� a fine effect if you get it for free, but it’s a bit much to pay on a Fury 4 garganutan.

It tries to make up for that by having a POW 19 melee bite that is magical, blessed, and comes with Purgation. That is an absolute guarantee that your Trik will murder anything that’s got an upkeep on it, but is that worth the worse animus, losing eyeless sight, and losing the extra attack out of an auto-slam gun? Personally I don’t think it’s much of a comparison between the two heads.

Many Eyed isn’t bad, and it is cheaper, but the Eyeless head is verging on broken.Rating: C-The Negation Tail is the first Arcane Tail, bringing Arcane Negation. When an enemy targets the Trik or another model within 3� of it with a spell, you can force the Trik to cancel the spell.

Now� this is really strong, but comes with a massive drawback: it completely messes up your fury count, and is under your opponent’s control. To realistically use this, you probably need to leave at least two open fury on the Trik, meaning your Warlock will have to cut twice to make up the difference if they don’t cast any spells at you, or if you go all the way up to your count elsewhere, and they make you cancel spells, you might risk a frenzy instead.

This is still strong, being able to simply shut down some magic cast nearby, but� personally I like the next option far better.Rating: C-The Void Tail brings Arcane Void, when a model is targeted by a spell within 5� of the Trik, the caster suffers d3 damage, and if they die, the spell doesn’t take effect. It also brings another melee attack to the party, an Arcane Lash that’s POW 14 with chain weapon, Feedback, and 3� reach.

Now just having that extra attack makes this feel worth it to me, because more attacks are always good, and I quite like the automatic damage from Arcane Void serving to warn off people who are thinking of spamming magic against models near the Trik.Rating: C+

Ranged Options

The Flame Head gives you, you guessed it, Resistance Fire along with a Fire typed AoE attack, with Critical Fire. The gun itself is quite good, RNG 14, with a POW 15/10 combination on a massive AoE of 4. What it lacks is pistol, which can cause problems if the Trik is charging in or otherwise trying to do melee work and shoot in the same turn.

Still, the Fire Resistance is nothing to sneeze at, being usually the more valuable of the resistances available thanks to the quantity of fire attacks in the game. The AoE attack also synergizes very well with both Incarnate Conjurors and Wyverns (though it’s a very expensive package).

Overall, a perfectly fine Garganutan gun without being anything exceptional.Rating: C+The Frost Head comes with, yup, Resistance Cold as well as a powerful cold typed spray. It’s RNG 12 with a POW of 14, so a bit weaker and shorter ranged than the Flame Head, but it does have pistol, along with two special rules: Critical Freeze and Shatter. The first causes stationary on a critical hit, the latter gets you an extra damage die against frozen models.

The choice here is, I think, one of the harder ones to make on the Trik. While you can get Cold Resistance from a tail as well, you can only get Fire Resistance from the Fire Head, and the extra couple of inches of range can mean a lot� but being able to utilize this Frost Head when engaged, and having the bonuses of it being a spray, are a big offset. That stationary is a better critical effect than fire helps as well.

I think this one comes down to your meta. If your usual opponents like taking things that AoE’s or fire checks can kill, or you’ve got a lot of old Menoth or fellow Khymaera throwing fire based attacks around, take the Fire Head, otherwise stick with Frost.Rating: C+The Frost Tail is our second source of Resistance Cold if you need it, and is cheaper than the following option by one point. Like the Frost Head, it’s attack is Cold Typed and has pistol, coming in at RNG 12 and POW 13. The advantages here are a ROF of 2, combined with Storm Chiller; When you hit an enemy you can push it d3� away, and it also comes with Critical Stationary.

If you combine this with the Eyeless Head, you can get quite a bit of board manipulation out of the three attacks, and if you combine it with the Frost Head, you can have several shots at that Critical Stationary. I know, I know, a Crit, but having three chances improves your odds a little.

Overall I like this one, it kind of fills the ‘secondary gunâ€� niche that all of the old colossals had.Rating: B–T³ó±ð Spined Tail goes in a slightly different direction. One point more than the Frost Tail, it’s bringing an AoE 3 to the party at the same range, but with a POW combination of 14/10 with Volume Fire.

So what it’s really doing for you is giving you a second big impact shot against another heavy, since the POW will be up to 16, or giving you an actual chance of doing damage with the blast effect since it’ll get bumped up as well. The accuracy buff also helps, minimizing the need to boost to hit.

The kicker, as always with Khymaera’s best guns, is the lack of pistol, but still, this is a perfectly fine option to take I think.Rating: B

Melee Heads

We’re back to costing points, which is still weird. The Bicorn is the cheaper of the melee heads, and is� well, a pretty weak attack for a model this size. It’s got a good reach at 3�, but a standard heavy’s POW of 18, and the only rule is Critical AP. I think if you’re taking Vallyx you’re fine with this head, relying on his feat to turn that critical effect on, but otherwise you’ll be much better off spending the two points on the next option.Rating: D+The Gulper isn’t perfect either, but it’s an improvement. Same range as the Bicorn, but you get a POW 22 attack, which is more appropriate for a Gargantuan, and it’s got the Consume rule. This means any small-based, non-leader warrior you hit is simply removed from play without a damage roll.

It’s� a weird rule since at the POW you’re hitting very, very, very few models can survive, and those models with rules that you can bypass with an instant RFP without damage are minimal as well. Even in those circumstances, only one of many attacks will be doing it, meaning you’re still likely to trigger the effect.

Honestly just having Take-Down on this attack would likely be better, at least then Warcasters wouldn’t be able to make tough rolls against it, but you’re really taking this head for the raw power.Rating: C+The Barbed Tail costs the exact same as the next option, making me wonder why they put a point cost on it at all. It’s RNG 3, POW 15, and has the Chain Weapon bonus, which is nice. It’s only effect is Critical Pitch, a throw effect on a critical roll. Not reliable except for Vallyx’s feat turn, but it’s one more battlefield manipulation rule if you need it.Rating: C-The Stinger is identical in every way to the weapon above, but we swap the Critical Pitch for straight Weaken: A living enemy model suffers -2 DEF and -2 melee damage for a round.

Now, if you’re in a Hordes heavy meta, that is a great rule that might see a Trik survive a round in combat even if it can’t kill all of the heavies nearby, but in Warmachine land� well, it does absolutely nothing to warjacks, or Cryxian undead, making it a rather wasted effect.

And before anyone says anything about using it to reduce a warcaster’s def, yes, you technically can, but if a gargantuan is attacking a leader model in melee you really should have already won the game.Rating: C-

Common Builds

Right, so, first up is the ranged platform build. This one’s going all in on making the Trik a dedicated shooting piece that wants to use bulldoze or its melee attacks to quickly get rid of anything near it so that it can use its guns to maximum effect. This is the kind of Trik you’ll likely take with someone like Shyryss.

You’ll take the Eyeless and Flame Heads with the Void Tail to get your strongest ranged attacks possible, probably take a Bicorn to save on points, then whether you take Arcane/Void tails or Stinger/Barbed is really up to your personal preference.

Next is a more melee centric option, and a type I’ve been running. You still take Eyeless for the animus and the threat of the slam, but you take the Gulper Head, Frost Head, and then the Void and Frost Tails to maximize your ability to contribute when your Trik is up close and personal with the enemy.

Finally, there’s the mix and match version, where you try to hit that middle ground. Eyeless, Flame, and Gulper for the heads, and then Void, Frost, and your preferred choice for the melee tail. This gets you a wide variety of attacks, both available resistances, at the cost of being one point off the maximum price for the model.

Common Mistakes

With Rapid Healing and maybe Dragon’s Blood, the Trik is usually good enough to survive an enemy heavy coming in, maybe a heavy and a unit if your d3’s are good and your opponent’s dice are unkind, but it’s not surviving two heavies. Sure, in theory it can, especially if they’re living warbeasts that Ryvyn can help mitigate with Mortal Fear, but you really don’t want to be relying on those d3 rolls to keep it up and running.

Like all Gargantuans or Colossals, the trick with the Trik is to constantly gauge where it can safely stand to only ever be taking on one enemy heavy at a time, preferably on its own terms, so that it can destroy that target and contribute by tearing up a bunch of warriors with either its guns, melee attacks, or both.

As soon as you put a Trik on the table your entire gameplan becomes centered around it. If it goes down, it’s not quite an instant loss, but it can be if you lose it turn two or even early turn three. It has to make it until the late midgame, or less win the table for you before it goes down.

Despite the potential power of its melee, you want to treat the Trik as a ranged platform first, and a melee option second. If the Trik spends rounds 2 and 3 shooting, softening up heavies and taking out infantry, and only gets engaged in round 4, you’re probably doing something very right, and should be in a good place.

Conclusion

By the standards of Gargantuans and Colossals, I think the Trikhymaerax is in a pretty good place all things considered.

While it doesn’t have the raw damage output of some of the others, what it brings is a very heady mixture of adaptable attacks, and a good deal of support effects. Force Barrier in particular is a god-send to the Shadowflame, as it can give all of our units a strong anti-shooting buff that can be combined with Warping Winds to give us a real shot at reaching melee against gunlines, while the Trik itself providing supporting fire from behind.

They key is to always being trying to leverage those additional effects, the slam gun, the big AoE’s, or else fish for the critical stationary effects while you use your supporting animus to its best possible use.

Always remember that if you’re taking a Gargantuan strictly as a beat stick, you are making a mistake. Sure, a Trik can comfortably one round any heavy in the game� but you can usually kill a heavy with a Vypex and a bit of support for a lot cheaper in terms of points spent.

While I can’t say I’ll put it in every list, it will definitely slot into a few as a set up and second wave piece. Both Vallyx and Shyryss will usually want one in their lists, and despite a few nitpicky complaints, I think it fits well into the overall faction.

Rating: B-

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