Lord Arbiter Hexeris

[PG_lord tyrant watt]

Well, thats his name according to the Warstore, and he, along with Domination will be out in November.


Here are a couple of definitions for "Arbiter".


ar·bi·ter (ärb-tr)
n.
1. One chosen or appointed to judge or decide a disputed issue; an arbitrator.
2. One who has the power to judge or ordain at will: an arbiter of fashion.

arbiter [ˈɑːbɪtə]
n
1. (Law) a person empowered to judge in a dispute; referee; arbitrator
2. a person having complete control of something

arbiter
one chosen to settle a controversy; an umpire or arbitrator.


Wild speculations are welcome?

[Cardboard]

Judge Dredd vibes anyone?

[dboeren]

OK, good to have a date AND a name. I wonder what he's being called upon to judge?

[PG_lord tyrant watt]

Well, it could mean that he has been given complete control over the western reaches. It may also mean that he is judging souls? Maybe a little death magic here?

[Amon]

Very interesting. Hexeris is one of my favorite characters in the storyline, so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens here almost as much as I am to seeing his model and rules!

edit: Holy heck--$20? Are we going to be looking at a medium base here?

[spacewolf92]

I wonder where they got this information? They don't seem to have anything for any of the other factions...

[SlaveOneD]

Arbiter, Arbiter, Arbiter, hmmmm?

Well "Policing" means he is there to enforce something within the Skorne Collective as opposed to enforcing upon their enemies. So buffs in the way of judgments perhaps?

Maybe "Vengeance" will be a granted ability to an elite cadre?

His fluff describes his penetrating gaze is able to see ones soul, or something like that. So i could pull from that he will be akin to judge or see through falsehoods.

Anyways its fun to speculate.

[Rynth]

"Through cunning, raw power, political acumen, and tactical genius, Lord Arbiter Hexeris has furthered his own schemes while simultaneously strengthening the Skorne Empire. The lord arbiter?s occult knowledge goes well beyond the lore of the skorne, and no enemy arcanist is safe from his vampiric thirst for mystical secrets. To oppose him in battle is to be sapped of arcane power as he steals and transforms the energies of his foes.
The warlock Lord Arbiter Hexeris comes in a blister. A player may field one Lord Arbiter Hexeris in a Skorne army."

$20? That's more than Zaal and the Kovaas and just as much as Xerxis. Whole lotta pieces for a whole lotta awesome or is he graduating to a larger base?
Now for the Speculation:
Increase in Fury and more spell caster focus?
Psychic Vampire as an innate ability?
A Replication like ability that applies to both focus and fury costing spells?
Steal focus and fury and turn it into fury?

[DFGStar]

Well, thats his name according to the Warstore, and he, along with Domination will be out in November.

really? NOVEMBER? I thought it was due out in September... or is that just the new warlocks? man.. this company knows how to make us patiently (or impatiently) wait for new goodies!

ps. i seem to remember reading on a privateer product info update that there were to be no releases in november/december so the company had some time to catch up with all their demand.

[planescapedm]

Judge the dead?

[eReinholdt]

Sounds to me like he's made a judgement call on the occult fiasco going on between mordikaar and zaal. Maybe he's some kind of moderator now for what's considered heretical and uses that position to allow himself to abuse more power. Fluff speculation abounds, I'm excited for the model and rules!

[Bastion5]

he sounds like a Skorne Scaverous. Here's to telekinesis!

[Junn Khan]

Steal spells is likely perhaps like Sayren. Stealing focus or fury as a feat is also a possibility as is replicating a spell cast in his control area ala Haley. I'm hoping the spell research means more "unique" factions spells. Lord willing, will have soul slave as a beast bond.

[szafa]

Maybe "Vengeance" will be a granted ability to an elite cadre?

Nit likely imo, we already have such think on eMakky.

[droffset]

It looks like he's getting some more power in the western reaches and has a chance to get back at Rasheth if there's a dispute he has authority over.

[Tainted Coil]

Sounds like psychic vampire will be an innate ability and he will get lamentation, except Naaresh already got it...

[whats82]

Lamentation is one of those spells that's highly dependent on the FURY stat, so a FURY6 with lamentation is vastly inferior to a FURY8.

I hope he can use animus of enemy beasts in his control

[skeith]

wat im curious is epics typically get their old feat as a spell or affect...his was killing and using their bodies....ranged aoe when killed move 3in and attack?

[gaminguy]

@DFGStar: It seems to be October that has the thin releases to allow PP to catch up on the stock issue (and the sooner the better IMHO, I'm still waiting on my LGS to get Warhogs, Bull Snappers, and Alten Ashley back in stock).

On Hexi: Lord Arbiter, that has a weird ring to it. Skorne seem to rely on Pain Givers (or the odd duel to the death) for that sort of thing. The fluff blurb smacks of denial warlock, but that could be wishful thinking on my part.

As I recall from the fluff Hexi got left in charge of the Western Reaches while Makeda went to deal with Vinter, and between the dragon, Mordikaar's run-in with Moshar, and the action in the Troll book things didn't seem to be going all that well. Hexi took a grilling over his performance from Makeda when she got back too. Seems a little odd that he managed to wrangle a promotion out of it.

Granted, he might have done much better "off-camera", and we only heard about the dramatic stuff. Arbiter might not really be a promotion either, it's not a position/cast I've seen in the Skorne fluff before. It's entirely possible that Makeda made it up to balance Rasheth's influence; she knows Hexi has his own agenda but he seems more concerned with arcane knowledge than material matters and he's proven loyal so far, Rasheth is an ambitious pig who she knows will backstab her the moment he thinks he can profit from it.

[CrypticApathy]

I really need to pick up the skorne book. The more i hear about the fluff the more i want to read about it.

Remind me again why theres not novels out for this game?

[dboeren]

Because any time spent writing novels is less time spent on the game itself?

Also with so many factions you can't really serve everyone - a lot of people are very centered towards their own factions and don't care to pay to read about the others. I'd buy a book about Menoth or Skorne or Farrow, but to me a book about Cygnar (who honestly is the most likely faction to get a significant chunk of the book) would be totally uninteresting. You can only split the book up so many ways, whatever the plot a lot of factions won't be getting screen time, so it's probably going to be mostly about 2-3 factions which means up to around 3/4 of your players may not care about it much. I think this is the same issue that killed off the action figures. They came out with Stryker, only Cygnar players wanted one, and so it didn't sell that well.

[equilshift]

Hmmm, arbiter is a fancy pants version of referee. So he somehow has the ability to settle disputes of some kind? I suppose that he might be part of a forced 'consensus' that Makeda will create among the Skorne. I also say +1 to replicate. I'm hoping for fury 8, and the ability to fight against warmachine just as much as against hordes.

As for the $20, thats the same price as eStryker. He will probably just have a large amount of pewter that makes up his model. Maybe an epic base, although I thought they said they were going away form those.

[PG_lord tyrant watt]

Did a little more digging on "arbiter".

The Latin definition means.....judge OR supreme ruler.

[Mr.chair]

I hope he has a spell called gavel, and his feat is called final judgment.

[equilshift]

The Latin root has a definite connotation of travel as well... not that that information will have any bearing on his rules OR fluff... just sayin

[Menite Ninja]

Whatever he is I'm starting at least a small Skorne interdiction force to use him with. And I'm goingto yell "I am the LAW!!!!" every time I swing or cast with him. Annoying? Incredibly. Fun? Tons. I can't wait

[Hasten]

"Through cunning, raw power, political acumen, and tactical genius, Lord Arbiter Hexeris has furthered his own schemes while simultaneously strengthening the Skorne Empire. The lord arbiter’s occult knowledge goes well beyond the lore of the skorne, and no enemy arcanist is safe from his vampiric thirst for mystical secrets. To oppose him in battle is to be sapped of arcane power as he steals and transforms the energies of his foes.
The warlock Lord Arbiter Hexeris comes in a blister. A player may field one Lord Arbiter Hexeris in a Skorne army."

Where is that description from? I didn't see it on the Warstore's page... is this speculation?

I do like his name, though I'm curious what he's arbitrating. I think gaminguy's guess makes sense: it's a position she invented to balance the disparate factions in the West, since he's proven loyal...ish in the past. I'm very excited to read the Domination story now!

-H

[CrypticApathy]

Because any time spent writing novels is less time spent on the game itself?

Also with so many factions you can't really serve everyone - a lot of people are very centered towards their own factions and don't care to pay to read about the others. I'd buy a book about Menoth or Skorne or Farrow, but to me a book about Cygnar (who honestly is the most likely faction to get a significant chunk of the book) would be totally uninteresting. You can only split the book up so many ways, whatever the plot a lot of factions won't be getting screen time, so it's probably going to be mostly about 2-3 factions which means up to around 3/4 of your players may not care about it much. I think this is the same issue that killed off the action figures. They came out with Stryker, only Cygnar players wanted one, and so it didn't sell that well.

Warhammer has done it and managed to include all the other faction in there novels. Granted the primary story of 75% of there books follow the space marines or imperial guard or the fantasy equivalent of them. I still loved how it was written since they explained about the universe as a whole as well.

Sorry to derail... back to subject

I want one! Hex is one of my most used warlocks.

[Rynth]

Where is that description from? I didn't see it on the Warstore's page... is this speculation?

I do like his name, though I'm curious what he's arbitrating. I think gaminguy's guess makes sense: it's a position she invented to balance the disparate factions in the West, since he's proven loyal...ish in the past. I'm very excited to read the Domination story now!

-H

It is from the Warstore.
http://www.thewarstore.com/product68950.html

[Darque]

Dare I hope for some form of cull souls or something to take enemy souls?

as for his feat becoming a spell some form of dominate dead perhaps?

[Hasten]

It is from the Warstore.
http://www.thewarstore.com/product68950.html

Ah... riiiight. From that big paragraph of text I overlooked.

Nothing to see here *whistles*

-H

[Hasten]

as for his feat becoming a spell some form of dominate dead perhaps?

Bone Shaker from Calaban seems likely.

[edit] darn it, double post. man, I'm n00bing it up this morning =) [/edit]

-H

[Mnkylord]

... I wonder if his title has anything to do with Hexy's role in keeping the peace between Zaal and Mordikaar? He is, for all intents and purposes, the glue that keeps them working "together" smoothly.

Edit: Doh! I see eReinholdt has already posed that hypothesis. Looks like I'm n00bing it up a bit, too.

[Warden]

What about a totally new ability. maybe call it Mystic conversion:
Any enemy spell or animus cast in his control area gives him one additional fury during his next activation? Kind of like an arcane Mordikaar.
Then give him Psychic Vampire as a full time ability.
Not only would your enemy be feeding your magic but would also hurt them in the process...ahh to dream a little dream.

[Indragnir]

Did a little more digging on "arbiter".

The Latin definition means.....judge OR supreme ruler.

I'm leaned to Supreme Ruler side. Fluff seems to support it somewhat.

[Bastion5]

Based on fluff, Id say hes going to have eHaley's spell copy thing. That would be sweet. Go ahead scaverous, cast TK on something of mine, i dare you

[Rynth]

Based on fluff, Id say hes going to have eHaley's spell copy thing. That would be sweet. Go ahead scaverous, cast TK on something of mine, i dare you

Honestly, Replication is about the LAST thing I want him to have.
As is Replication copies spells that cost Focus. Given the standard Focus becomes Fury and Warbeast becomes Warjack treatment that abilities get when crossing over it would only let him copy spells with a Fury cost. I'd rather have an always effective ability than another "only against Hordes" ability.
Right now my biggest fear is that eHexeris will have too many Hordes centric abilities, and a straight port of Replication would be a step in the wrong direction.

My MK1 books were sold a while back, so could someone refresh me on what exactly Hexeris' schemes are?
We know he is getting secret knoweledge from his ancestor, but know no details about that.
We know that he has been studying the journey of souls from different races, but no details about how such trivia can be used to his advantage.
We know he supports and accommodates Zaal and Mordikaar in their researches, but how does this further Hexeris' plans?

Its a shame Gavyn Kyle decided to not do his job when researching Hexeris otherwise we might be able to make more informed guesses about what is happening w/ eHexeris.

November is too damn far.

[Delrogue]

I'd really love a board control feat along the lines of Harby or the Old Witch. Pow14 on any living or undead model that ends its activation closer to hexeris or something.

An AOE spell that takes control of models killed by it wojld certainly make sense and not be too OP.

The bit about stealing mystical secrets and no caster being safe implies more than just a replication of spells to me... It implies some sort of loss or damage to the opponent caster.

Perhaps instead of psychic vamp and the ability to steal fury off enemy beasts, he'll gain the ability to use the spells/magical abilities of models he kills. This wont have much of an effect on enemy casters, since if they die the game is over, but there are certainly plenty of non caster magic users in the game for this to be situationally useful.

Alternatives might be some sort of variation on pEyriss gun that strips focus and fury and stops it being generated for the next turn. Not too OP as a feat is it?

[Uratoh]

Doesn't e-goreshade have psychic vampire as an 'always on' ability already?

[planescapedm]

I really, really, really want to see this $20 30mm base caster.