M2E+Desolation+Engine


 * Desolation Engine, Outcast Enforcer[[image:Desolation_Engine.jpg width="196" height="173" align="right"]]**

In the blending of undead flesh and machine, the last touch of humanity left in the flesh is forced out by the foreign elements connected to it, leaving a monstrosity that is neither truly alive nor dead but moving toward oblivion with each passing second of its existence. The Desolation Engine's body reacts violently against its numerous metal implants, causing violent fits capable of killing anyone that draws too close.

=__Overview__=

The Desolation Engine is a mechanical nightmare of death and destruction that will tear a swath of destruction through just about anything. It's big, dumb, and very, very angry. toc

=__Mobility__=

The Desolation Engine's Walk speed of 5 is average, but it combines this with a very excellent Charge speed of 8, which - when combined with its 3" melee range - makes it quite capable of getting into combat to tear something into pieces.

=__Offense__=

The Desolation Engine is a finely tuned instrument of death and destruction. Its Melee Expert grants it an additional AP that can only be used on melee attacks, but that's what you want to be doing with the Desolation Engine anyways, so it all works out.

Its single attack action, Entropy Claws, has a **Ml** skill of 6, an impressive three inch melee range, and a very respectable damage spread of 3/4/6. Its innate Restabilize trigger allows it to heal an amount of damage equal to that it deals, which - given the high damage of the Desolation Engine - does a pretty good job of keeping it healthy.

The second trigger, Desolate Warping, allows the Desolation Engine to summon an Abomination when it kills an enemy model. With a weak damage of 3, it's usually pretty easy to tell when an attack is going to kill the Engine's target, so save those crows for finishing attacks so that you can convert your opponent's models into willing Abominations.

While the Desolation Engine only has a single attack action, it does possess two more offensive options in the form of the Desolate Supplications tactical action and the Industrial Nightmare ability. Both options are similar, yet slightly different in how they function.

Desolate Supplications is a free actions that forces all enemy models within a 6" pulse to succeed on a TN 13 **Df** duel or suffer 2 damage. This causes the Desolation Engine to take 3 damage, and it can only do so when it has 4 or more wounds remaining (ie, you can't use the action if it would kill the Engine). This is a great action with a wide range, but if the Desolation Engine is in melee, make sure to use it before your attack so that it can heal up the damage it takes with its Restabilize trigger.

The Desolation Engine's Industrial Nightmare ability forces all enemy models within a 3" pulse to take a TN 12 **Df** duel at the end of the Engine's activation or suffer 2 damage. You don't have to do anything to make this happen, and most models will need a moderate or higher card to pass the duel, making this a fairly consistent source of damage for those that are already within the Desolation Engine's melee range.

=__Resilience__=

Though the Desolation Engine only has a Df of 3, it has a higher than average Wp of 6 and as many wounds as most masters, making it fairly resistant to attacks. Further helping to keep its damage down is Hard to Wound +1, which helps to mitigate the number of moderate and severe damage flips coming its way.

If wounded, the Desolation Engine possesses two forms of self-healing, the first in the form of its innate Restabilize trigger, which heals it for an amount of damage equal to the damage it deals with its attack. Its second form of healing comes in the form of the Consume free action, which lets the Engine eat a nearby friendly model to perform a healing flip. Nom nom nom.

The Desolation Engine also has a weird form of self-recursion in its Lost Focus ability, which summons two Abominations when it finally dies. Abominations possess the Concentrated Deformation action, which allows four of them to combine to summon a new Desolation Engine. Because of this, if you manage to make a few Abominations with the Engine before it is killed, you can potentially bring the Desolation Engine back to life without much work.

=__Upgrades__=

The Desolation Engine works just fine without any upgrades, but if you do decide to upgrade it, your best bet is probably the Oathkeeper upgrade, just to give it a turn of being Fast. Three general AP and one Melee Expert AP in one activation makes for a very scary engine of death.

=__Tactics and Tips__=

The Desolation Engine is a very good model, especially if you're planning on summoning a fair amount of Abominations, as it's always good to be able to combine them into a much more effective death machine. The Desolation Engine summons two Abominations when it dies, which makes its 13ss cost a bit of a deception...if you think of it as a 5ss model with two 4ss models stuck inside of it like a pinata, you wouldn't be entirely wrong. With all the Abomination summoning available to Leveticus and his crew, this makes the Desolation Engine a solid choice for him (even if you summon it mid-game via Abominations instead of hiring it at the start).

Otherwise, the Desolation Engine wants to get into combat, so do what you can to get it into combat and you'll be happy with it.

Tara can get some good use out of the Desolation Engine by using Pull the Void to make it Fast and bury it at the start of the turn, then using Obliteration Symbiote to unbury and toss it into the opponent's crew at the end of the turn. Because the Desolation Engine is capable of self-healing itself - and because it turns into two Abominations when it dies - this can cause a great deal of damage and chaos in an opponent's crew, especially if they're not expecting Tara to drop a Desolation Bomb on them.

=__Playing Against the Desolation Engine__=

The Desolation Engine is a melee model with a low defense, so shoot it at range if possible. If it gets into melee, it can be //very// difficult to kill with how easily it can heal its wounds, so do what you can to keep your distance and fill it full of lead and/or magic.

If you see three or four Abominations hanging out in a little group, do what you can to kill one or more of them before they can combine into a Desolation Engine and start cutting a swathe of destruction. Blasts are good for this.

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