Demonic Portal Glyphs fun for the whole family..

Have you been mustering your demonic forces? Summoning up some evil to once again hit the table top. It's no lie that since the new Demon book has dropped Demons have been hitting tables in force ready to roll on some random charts and consume souls. There are skulls to be collected for that throne project that Khorn never has finished.. Not really his fault he can't just run to home depot and pick up enough skulls like we could for a project of bricks. No he has to earn them.. We aren't here to talk about the blood god's Throne, We are here to talk about the portal glyph. A item that has a huge amount of flexibility on the tabletop. So gather round kiddies and let's summon some monsters!

First off what is the Portal Glyph?

No no that is round but isn't actually bad for your enemies and not the artifact we are talking about.

In the fluff it is an unknown item that isn't understood at all. The presence of this item creates a rift in the warp allowing demons to spill through into the mortal plane. This item cannot be destroyed only sealed. Well that's what the fluff says in a few words but what does it actually do on the table?

First off its a HellForged Artifact. So you can roll on the Exalted gifts table and then trade your gift for one of these items. The two you will see most often are the Grimoire of True Names and the PortalGlyph. The fact that you can decide at the start of the game if you want the portal glyph or the Grimioire is huge in itself and shouldn't be over looked. However let's not get distracted with the other artifacts at the moment let's simply focus on the Portal Glyph, also known as the Porta Potty if you listen tot he 11th company. Patent pending.

So Once per game at any point in your movement phase you get to throw this thing out within 12 inches of the model carrying it. It then is treated like a Deep Strike and once it lands is a immobilized armor 12 vehicle with one hull point. That then starts randomly producing a troop unit of your choice every turn.. You have to roll a 4+ to successfully do this but then and this is key.. you get to roll for D6 guys and THEN choose what troop you want...

So let's recap.. this thing which is dirty cheap, makes troops for you every turn it is in play if you can pass a 4+ roll. If you aren't paying attention troops have become pretty important in 6th edition but more so this allows you to slack off on buying other troops and use it to fill in a unit or two in missions that you need them.
So initially people fall into two camps when you first talk about this in my experience. They fall into the "that is a dumb item, it's not reliable, and it only has 1 HP" or "I will drop this turn one and crank out some troops to hold my back lines camp" The item is much more flexible than this and I want to talk about that today.

First let's talk about the basic perks of this thing game wise..

You need to have a back up plan!! Know your options!!

Its a small blast marker meaning, there are going to be several times where it can't be seen to even be targeted.

You can drop it any point in your movement phase.. this means you can do it first, or move and drop it plus you can place it 12 inches away from you.. Plus the troops spawn from it as if coming out of a transport. So you can potentially put troops 30 inches away from your starting point, not counting a run move made by the troops you spawn. Also the portal Glyph is a demon so has a 5++ save even when not in cover and especially in hth.

So how do want to use it.. Well that is going to depend on your mission, your list, and the person your playing. My point is that the Portal is very flexible and most players are only using it one way.

You drop the thing turn one to maximize the usefulness of it.. Usually in your deployment zone and you spawn some plague bearers or horrors to hold some of your home objectives. This isn't a bad strategy at all. Remember one horror has the same shooting power of ten so this is pretty solid and can be annoying.

You can also use it to bail out something that has been tar pitted though. If your playing against an opponent that plans to lock down your Thirster with some random tarpit unit for the next 3 turns you can sometimes use the portal to bail him out... If you can drop the portal close by you can spawn letters, or demonettes that can assault into the tarpit. Keep in mind this is one of the harder uses to pull off because it means you need to get the portal in a decent position and you can't assault the turn you arrive from the portal. So things have to be set up in a manner that allows this unit to be ignored or out of reach.. However again a option that most people don't even consider that is at your disposal as a demon player.

There are several games that you can hold on to the portal though. Late game the portal has a much more dramatic impact on the game. Dropping the thing turn 5 for instance and using it to spawn some deamonettes who get a fantastic run move means you can claim a vacant objective in no man's land or even steal LineBreaker in the last few turns of the game. IF the portal lands in the deployment zone spawn some Plague bearers and shuffle them into cover.. Good luck killing those late game, or again if your need more movement deamonettes. Also you can use it to contest in the same manner. Not just units that are objective camping because you went second, but also for combats that you don't expect to win. I want to note that while this can have a huge pay out in some games the risk is also bigger because if you lose the model carrying the portal before you drop it then it clearly isn't going to pay off.

The point is this is a fantastically flexible bit of war gear so take a moment to consider what troop you should spawn and how you should use it when your gaming.. Don't be afraid to think outside the box.

There is no official model to use for this so I wanted to leave you with some pictures of custom portals people have thrown together.