M2E+Spawn+Mother


 * Spawn Mother, Neverborn Henchman**
 * LIVING, SWAMPFIEND, BEAST **

=__Overview__= The largest of the Silurid family that we have seen so far, the Spawn Mother is the Matriach, and woe betide anyone that messes with her children.

=__Mobility__= By the time you grow as large as the Spawn Mother it seems the Silurid loses its leaping ability. But she has a good Wk. She is also allowed a free charge against an enemy model that kills a friendly Swampfiend nearby.

=__Offense__= Compared with the other members of the Silurid family she is the big hitter. But that's not saying much. Her only attack has respectable Ml 6, and a 2/3/5 damage profile with a trigger to add poison.

=__Resilience__= Like all her family, she is Silent and has Perfect Camouflage. This means models can't ignore LOS or Cover (sometime handy), and until she has activated Sh actions and actions from charges suffer negative flips. She has a good Df stat, but not a huge number of wounds for her cost

=__Upgrades__=
 * Protect the Young** - This gives you a critical strike trigger on **//Menacing Talons//** and the ability to hire out of faction swampfiends if she is the leader. In a Henchman game if planing on also taking Mctavish this is an auto include.
 * Hexed Among You** - This lets you deploy swampfiends upfield during deployment. This can be great with Waldgiests to allow you to engage alot of units early after they charge and place their forests. If you don't have other swampfiends though its useless.
 * Fears Given Form** - This is a great upgrade for any of your melee masters or henchmen. This can give Spawn Mother some breathing room early to place egg markers down. Once those are in place you can charge her in to a clumped enemy position to cause some damage or waste cards from your opponents hand. If they kill her because of it they've saved you the effort of hatching your Gupps yourself
 * The Mimics Blessing** - Only somewhat useful as you already have //Perfect Camouflage//. The card draw when killed though can be handy as you almost want Spawn Mother dead turn 4 or 5 and the card draw could get you masks for your gupps leap.

=__Tactics and Tips__= Well she isn't the most durable, or the hardest of hitting. She isn't amazingly fast, so why bring a spawn mother? There are 3 tactical actions that give her a purpose in your list. 2 of them are used to summon Gupps.

She can **lay eggs** as a (0) action. The eggs hatch under 2 conditions, either when she takes the (2) **Nesting pool** action to Hatch them, or when she is killed or sacrificed. the only restriction on the Nesting pool is it can't be done if she laid an egg that turn. You can Hatch eggs, and then lay another if you want though. The egg laying only needs a 6 of Crows, and she is a henchman, so any 6 with a ss. The biggest downside and benefit to this summoning is that you don't get a model the same turn as you lay the egg, but your opponent also can't target them either.

The third Action, **Nourish the Young**, adds +2 to the Cg of friendly models which activate within 6". This is nice on any model that is going to charge, giving it an extra 2" threat, but you can do better than that with the right crew. There are other abilities, such as leap that are based of Cg, so a Silurid under the effects of **Nourish the Young** can leap 9" and then charge another 9", giving it a 19" threat rather than its normal 15".


 * Nourish the Young** will work best in crews designed to take advantage of it so she can be more of a model to build a list around if planing on using this extensively.

You can play Spawn mother for delayed Gupp deployment for late game schemes. Eggs can't be removed and using **Nesting Pool** late in turn 4 keeps can keep your gupps safe until after your opponent is too low on activations to take them all out and have them upfield ready to place markers down turn 5. Spawn Mother used this way will likely need to stay mobile and have at least 1 SS dedicated to laying eggs. Used this way she can function fairly independent of the rest of the crew and allow you to focus the rest of your crew for other objectives than scheme running.

=__Leading a Crew__= She has natural synergy with Swampfiends so they will likely make up the majority of the crew but any models with strong charging abilities will fit right in.

Strategies and Schemes
Nourish the Young works well with models with leap. Models with leap do really well at Stake a claim, Deliver a message, and any scheme which requires you to drop scheme markers. The nesting pool/egg laying can be quiet good to replenish numbers for Turf war or Reconnoiter, as it adds significant minions in the mid to late game.

Marker placement heavy schemes like Line in the Sand or breakthrough are also quite viable as a couple of Gupps spawned on turn 4 with enough masks for leap can place enough markers on turn 5 to score full points on most of these types of schemes, even if undeclared.

Building a Crew
Spawn mother and Gupps are both Swampfiends, so they can work well with Bad Juju and his Eternal Fiend upgrade, as you can have a ready supply of Swampfiends to die to bring him back. They are also Beasts, so can be taken with Marcus, who can have access to several models with leap, as well as 1 AP charges himself, so can get quite a use from Nourish the young based lists

=__Playing Against the Spawn Mother__= Take her out early if possible to minimize the amount of eggs she can lay. Paralyzing or giving her slow on turn 4 and 5 can also be just as effective as you can keep gupps from spawning unless your opponent wants to kill her themselves. You can also sit 40 and 50 mm models on top of egg markers to prevent spawning. Also avoid killing swampfiends within her charge range to avoid her free charge. Also be aware of the charge range of any models near her as she can boost it farther then you might normally expect.

Unless otherwise stated, all names and images on this site are property of Wyrd Miniatures, LLC. ([|Link])
 * __Ownership__ **