The Favourites: The Corruptor

Us boiz at OB have a tendency to be Negative Nancy's and over-explain why we don't like particular units. We get right into the bellies of the beasts and start pulling out the intestines like handkerchiefs from a magician's sleeve (oo, a metaphor within a metaphor; a metaphwor), exposing the gory insides and explaining perhaps how we we would have played god and rearranged the organs. It can all be a bit gloomy, really. What we don't do often enough is give our favourite units a grooming day in the parlour and parade them around in front of all to see, explaining what it is that makes them our favourites.

Consider this the first in a new series that my fellow Bombardierians (I hope, I've not mentioned this to them yet) and I will show you our most featured and key units, explain why they are so good, and ways to squeeze the most out of them in battle!

We will be starting our tactica with everyone's favourite flying love machine, the Corrupter.

What's It All About?

The Corrupter is the Scourge's latest gunship based on the frame of the quick but fragile Reaver, which is more or less just a slightly more robust Intruder chassis. Rather than bristling with plasma weaponry though, it is instead armed with a bundle of tubes packed with everyone's least favourite surprise; Razorworms. Unlike a conventional gunship the Corrupter uses its weapon to populate buildings with the Scourge equivalent of guard dogs, in an attempt to overwhelm the board with infantry for a boost in CQB, as well as a host of other different uses.

The Corrupter was the result of Razorworms needing a better delivery service (over the Slayer and Tormentor, who are just bad at it), and also the release of the duel blister sets which will now populate the shelves of our favourite hobby stores. We've seen some of these new duel units flop a little, but the Corrupter has nestled itself firmly into almost every Scourge force.

What's It Good At?

Our worm rocket fills a completely unique capacity in any Dropzone army, in that it can create extra infantry units; literally no other unit can do this! This allows Scourge to dominate most CQB instances as previously noted, but also get extra points onto focal points and critical locations. In addition to this Razorworms can search for objectives (even if they can't hold them, they can find them for others), which is very useful indeed, but more on that later. Also very specifically on Ground Control and Domination the Corrupter and it's payload is potentially worth an enormous 230 points!

So How Do I Use It?

I tend to have my Corrupter in the same battlegroup as my main Infantry squads so that its activation
tends marries with theirs, which will be typically be either early or late turn. These activation times suit the gunship, as you normally either want to be nabbing the occupier status in a building or boosting a CQB which may have just swung out of your favour. Of course the missions you are playing will dictate the use of this beast, so...

Targets Of Opportunity / Military Complex / Crucible; Turn 1 I will squirt worms into my objective building to increase the chance of finding that Objective on turn 2 (before any Infantry have entered, to avoid falling masonry crushing my units due to the 1dp a successful launch causes. This has happened a number of times...). This is especially relevant if you are playing a demo heavy army and need to get out of dodge asap. Grouping your Corruptor with Infantry will help in this scenario as you will be able to roll more search dice at once, increasing the opportunity of discovering it and moving on to become the occupier elsewhere and/or avoiding demolition death. From Turn 2 onward I will use it to either react to CQB which are to take place the following turn and commit worms to the fight, or shoot some into an unoccupied Objective building and become the occupier.

Secure The Flanks / Careful Advance; Just like before I'll get worms in my objective building Turn 1, and then either become the occupier in the middle building (if it looks like the opponent has any interest in going inside) or keep them to add a few points to the FP's / CL's on the board. an extra 50 points can make a lot of difference!

Ground Control / Domination; Although these missions are pretty similar on the face of it, scoring mid-game changes the nature of this mission entirely. If I'm playing Ground Control I'm probably waiting until Turn 3 to bring on the Corruptor on to avoid it being sniped, but in Domination it's in play from Turn 1 to react to my opponents movements and have each base add 50 points to a quarter. I am probably squirting a base onto the field in turn 2 or 3, and then 4 or 5.

Defence Line; Scourge like this mission as they have hard and expensive Exotics which peeps don't want to mess with! That said, Warriors are squishy, so my Razorworms are either going into a bunker to help them in a CQB, or perhaps just tilt the points balance in your favour.

Recon / Whatever the new ones called...; The temptation to use Worms to look for intel is strong, but I think I would instead use them to gum up your opponents Infantry and stop them getting into your board half. Razorworms are surprisingly stubborn and dangerous against standard Infantry and will allow your boys and girls a lot more freedom in searching through all of their buildings!

As you can see the Corruptor is surprisingly useful in every mission type, and especially those with objectives! A handy trick I've employed for extracting objectives is to outnumber your foe's squads in a building you occupy using a base of Razorworms, and at the beginning of the turn elect to keep a single squad out of CQB. As the occupier you can choose who does or does not fight if you outnumber the enemy in squads (importantly, not bases. A single base of Worms is a squad), which allows the unengaged squad to abscond with the objective if you find it. Even better than this, you will be able to search with that squad and the Razorworms, as any objective found by worms is dropped and then can be picked up by any friendly squad before your enemy gets a chance (Important! squads in CQB cannot hand of objectives to any unit, inside of outside of the building, so if you roll for and find the objective with a locked squad they are stuck with it).

What Is It Bad At?

The humble Reaver chassis the Corruptor sports makes it incredibly fragile, especially as it tends to roll about on its own making it easy pickings for reaction fire. Pretty much any AA gun can double it out with a bit of luck, so you have to be sneaky and either hide it well, or use your other air assets to draw out potential reaction fire. Every now and then you will lose it having only shot out one or two bases, which can really hurt. You'll also find it won't really kill anything, due to the single Plasma Hose it has. A single E9, 6" shot is as poor as it sounds!

Why Is It A Favourite?

I think everyone who has used a Corruptor will agree with me when I say it is just the most Scourgey unit in the game! The aircraft feels so on point with what the Scourge are all about; it's quick and fragile, but the way it delivers it's payload into buildings is just so alien, there's nothing else like it!

For me the Corruptor is a 1+ unit. It's useful in every mission, and I have never had a case where it has been redundant in a game. If I need a CQB bonus, an extra objective roll, extra mission points in any mission type or just a juicy target to draw out reaction fire the Corruptor fits the bill. In the current meta this flying, fleshlight wielding machine of utility reigns supreme.

In my head-cannon there is a Corruptor variant called the Celebrator, where all the tubes are replaced with gargantuan confetti cannons and it used for Scourge celebrations and parades.