Black+Blood+Shaman

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 * Black Blood Shaman, Neverborn Minion [[image:WYR4037_500.jpeg width="266" height="573" align="right"]]**

=__Overview__= Black Blood Shaman is a support model with a variety of buff effects. It can heal minions, give bonuses to Charge, and improve the __power__ of Black Blood.

Many of the Black Blood Shaman's powers rely on Blood Counters, which are in short supply and generally used mostly for Growing and Maturing other Nephilim rather than one-time effects. The Black Blood Shaman can, however, also use Corpse Counters as Blood Counters, which helps with this flow somewhat, and in a pinch can gain Blood Counters by doing damage to itself. The Black Blood Shaman can also gain Blood Counters whenever a living or undead model is killed nearby, which may allow you to gain addition Blood Counters after said model is killed in addition to the Blood Counter that you will gain from successfully killing a living or undead model.

Overall, however, the Black Blood Shaman is difficult to use successfully. In a low-soulstone game, it's often more useful to have a Young Nephilim at the same price. In a higher-soulstone game, other support Nephilim become more readily affordable: either Nekima, or Lelu and Lelitu. If you are playing without Nekima, the Black Blood Shaman may be able to help some crew-killing grow strategies early in the game.

=__Mobility__= Compared to other Nephilim, the Black Blood Shaman has a little trouble with Mobility. It's Move is average and just fine, but unlike other Nephilim, the Black Blood Shaman doesn't have Scout, Flight, or Float, so it does get slowed down by terrain.

The Shaman has an ability that pushes all friendly Nephilim 4" toward the Shaman. This can help speed up other Nephilim, pulling them forward before their activation begins (or rescuing them out of danger by pulling them back behind cover after they have already activated.)

=__Offense__= The Black Blood Shaman's melee attack has Poison, which is nice, but otherwise the Black Blood Shaman is not __very__ strong in combat.

The Black Blood Shaman has several spells that improve other Nephilim's abilities, increasing charges and melee capabilities. Many of the best of these require Blood Counters, however, which are usually better spent with Grow or Mature. Still, the Black Blood Shaman can use Corpse Counters instead.

Most of the Shaman's offensive buffs require Blood Counters. A few can be used by spending Wd instead.

=__Resilience__= The Black Blood Shaman has healing spells that will help it stay up longer, but otherwise is fairly vulnerable to attacks. The Black Blood Shaman really prefers to stay just behind the line of combat, where it can help other minions without getting attacked itself.

=__Tips and Tricks__= If you have the __right__ cards for it, you can cast use a Corpse Counter one of the Black Blood Shaman's spells to buff or heal a friendly minion, and then use a spell trigger to get back a Blood Counter instead. This can, effectively, change a corpse into Blood Counters that your Nephilim can use to Grow or Mature, and generate a beneficial buff at the same time.

If you can't find anything to do with a Black Blood Nephilim, you can always inflict 4 Wd on yourself and generate a Blood Counter. A nearby Terror Tot will appreciate it.

A common trick with Black Blood Minion is to set up two Terror Tots, two Desperate Mercenaries, and a Black Blood Shaman. On __the first__ round, each Tot kills a Desperate Mercenary on its own side as well and gains a Blood Counter, then Grows into a Young Nephilim. The Shaman generates two Blood Counters as well, from being near the killing. This is enough to have one Young Nephilim change into a Mature Nephilim on the next turn. With this kind of trick, you pay 16 Soulstones (2 x 2 for the Mercenaries, 2 x 3 for the Terror Tots, and 6 for the Black Blood Shaman) to get 22 Soulstones worth of minions (6 for a Young Nephilim, 10 for a Mature Nephilim, 6 for the Black Blood Shaman). The Black Blood Shaman also then has 2 Corpse Counters to pick up, which should be enough to operate for the first few turns until it can pick up more. This kind of Grow strategy gives you powerful minions at the price of your first few activations.

Other synergies Black Blood Shaman offer are often being overlooked because it takes some effort to make them work (i.e. the player needs to keep him close to other Nephilim during the game) and the lists which would benefit the most from these are not very common. Among the most powerful buffs Black Blood Shaman can offer are:

- **(0)Blood Frenzy** can be used to give **(2)Flurry** not only to powerful minions like Mature Nephilim or Nekima, but also to Lilith - making it possible for her to strike 4 times within single activation. This spell is very reliable as it has no Blood Counter cost in its additional requirements, is a pulse which buffs multiple models at once, and can affect any Nephilim including the master.

- Black Blood Shaman can greatly improve the combat prowess of a Nephilim fighter by reducing the cost of its **Charge** to a single AP with **(0)Blood Magic**. This essentially gives the target a chance to strike for the second time or extends the threat range of the affected minion. Once engaged in combat, the Nephilim can be buffed in the following turns with the above-mentioned **Blood Frenzy**, while the **Blood Magic** can still be used to give a minion engaged in combat **Poison 2** or **Fast**.

- Black Blood Shaman can turn the Waldgeist, Lilith's common non-Nephilim minion, into a Nephilim, potentially making it a good target for **Blood Frenzy**. The Waldgeist tend to opperate independently from the rest of the crew though (since they are tied to the forests on the table) and may not be close enough to benefit from these two spells. This Spell opens the way for Black Blood Shaman to heal the Waldgeist with **Inject Blood** as well.

For most of these synergies to work the other minions must either end their activations close to the Shaman, so that it can buff them in the next turn, or the Shaman must use a Mature Nephilim as a transport. In the later case the Shaman may also use **Blood in the Air** to help a swarm of Nephilim follow him.

All these synergies make the Shaman a solid __choice__ when fielding swarms of Terror Tots or larger groups of Young Nephilim. In combination with Nekima the Shaman can boost Terror Tots' effective threat range to 18~23" (**Sprint** with extra Masks from Nekima and 1AP **Charge** from the Shaman). The pair can also give Tots auto-**Flay** in conjunction with **Flurry** for better damage output in combat. The Young Nephilim, with Nekima's **Nephilim Heart** granting them auto-**Flay,** also benefit both from **Flurry** (giving them 4 Strikes per turn) and cheaper **Charge** (extending their threat range or giving them 3 strikes in the turn they charge in).

=__Master-Specific Tips__= Black Blood Shaman will almost always be found working for Lilith, and doesn't really have synergies with other Masters.

=__Minion-Specific Tips__= Black Blood Shaman is much more useful when played against living or undead opponents, since it can gain more Blood and Corpse Counters during play that way. Consider fielding one when facing a Resurrectionist crew to deny them the corpse counters they need.

=__Playing Against [Minion]__= The Black Blood Shaman has some tricks, but ultimately it's a lot less dangerous than the Young Nephilim you'd be likely to see otherwise.

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