High Exemplar Sarvan Gravus

High Exemplar Sarvan Gravus Source BattleCollege

The High Exemplar is the Protectorate of Menoth’s character dragoon solo, similar to Fenris of Khador, Darragh Wrathe of Cryx and Lady Katherine Laddymore of Cygnar.  Gravus, similarly to these peers, has a whole swathe of special abilities and skills.  He is a combination of a support piece and a melee monster.  This article will discuss these further as well as a small exposé on his battlefield exploits and finally a small painting commentary.

Gravus at a glance:

He has the same basic stats of a Venger, with +1 MAT, though he doesn’t carry the Venger lance or short sword; he does however have a rather nasty magical mace with several special rules.  Gravus’ support role extends as far as his Brother’s Keeper ability, which is passive in his CMD of 9” and makes all Exemplar models immune to knock down and stationary effects.  It is like one of the Covenant’s three abilities, but only applies to Exemplar models.  Gravus is a commander, so non-exemplar models in his CMD range will be able to use his CMD if required.

Perhaps one of Gravus’ main abilities is Crusader’s Requiem; Gravus can collect up to three souls from destroyed Exemplar models – note this only triggers from an enemy attack, so Self Sacrifice or killing your own models won’t benefit Gravus.  Gravus can use these souls to buy extra attacks and boost as he sees fit.

As a cavalry model Gravus is quite nippy, speed 8 with reach makes his threat quite long without any speed buffs such as Crusader’s Call etc.  Gravus has access to the cavalry rules, so can do Ride-by Attacks, Impact Attacks and has Tall in the Saddle.

Gravus’ weapon, called Reverence, it is a magical mace with reach, Chain Weapon and has the Dispel passive ability.  As Gravus is an Exemplar he has the Weapon Master ability and therefore rolls an additional dice of damage.  The base stat of Reverence is P&S 11 which is lower than the Venger’s lance, but the Weapon Master ability makes up for this somewhat.  Having Chain Weapon and Dispel will see situational use, but could be game turning in the right circumstances.

Overall Gravus is pretty decent, he gives out some good passive buffs and has obvious synergy with Exemplar models, I’ve played two games with him at the point of writing this so can’t really add too many anecdotes of how best to use him, but strategy so far has been to hang back for a turn or two handing out some passive benefit and then charging in to mop up or help out with a full soul load out, he is quite pricey at five points, perhaps not everybody’s cup of tea, but I’m keen to give him a chance.  If Dave is reading this then he will be chuckling to himself as he remembers Gravus’ debut game:- fully painted, never seen the battlefield before, somehow survives being blasted by Dave’s Gun Carriage, gets a full soul load out and charges the DEF10 Gun Carriage…  Tall in the Saddle makes Gravus MAT10, so he takes a mighty swing and low and behold rolls snake eyes – D’oh!  It is OK as Gravus has three souls and buys a second attack, SNAKE EYES AGAIN! – WTF!!!  He did hit with the next two but failed to destroy the Khadoran Battle Engine.  Later he did redeem himself a little by killing a couple of Great Bears late game and probably finished off the Battle Engine!  Not the most glittering start to his career, but I’m keen to keep field testing him and I feel he adds some important benefits to my Harbinger list.

Painting the High Exemplar:

As a dragoon Gravus has a mounted and dismounted miniature, both are obviously very similar, though I do like the fact both are subtly different, as in the pose, head/arm position etc.  As with the rest of my Protectorate forces painting followed the tried and tested method outlined in previous entries.  I did paint the models in separate pieces and found that I did need to break off the two previously glued (mounted) model arms to fully paint said body and arms.

A note on ink lining

I did spend quite a long time ink lining the model to make the various panels and raised sections stand out.  As I painted the model I could really see this making the miniature ‘pop’ and although painstaking as a task it is worth the effort in my opinion.  If readers are interested I use a 10 zero synthetic brush with the old GW black ink.  Synthetic brushes are harder than sable and I find give more control for tasks such as this.  Ink has very high pigment content and will overlay any underlying colour, you’ve therefore got to be careful as a mistake will be hard to rectify.  Ink also has a tendency to dry glossy, so worth bearing in mind if you don’t want that, you could rectify with a matte varnish or sourcing a matte drying black ink.  Ink does however flow nicely and with a steady hand will separate two colours and improve the neatness factor tenfold.

Finished model