Bloodhorn Slayer

  Instead of armour to protect their chests, Slayers tattoo their upper torso, shoulders, and face in crimson. This dye is made by the same blood brewed solution that the Bloodhorn Champions treat their plate armour with.   The only armour which the slayers carry are metal shoulderplates to loosely protect their necks, bracers to prevent lacerations by their wrist artery, and a heavy pair of pants with a flowing loincloth above. The lower body protection is also painted red, yet made as gambeson leggings rather than metal greaves.   The most terrifying feature of the Slayers are their twin axes. These hatchets are covered in hellish runes whose beaks permanently crackle with flames.    

Strengths

 

• Indomitable: The Slayers believe that in death there is glory and in cowardice death. To them any retreat which is not purely strategical is pointless. This means that for all their mad glory Bloodhorn Slayers will never run from a last stand, but they are paradoxically wise enough to delay their own deaths. As long as it means that they prolong the fight.
• Heavy Hitter: These barbaric warriors are known to hit with exceptional force. They can break through shield walls with barely a sweat, crack armour like they were eggs, and absolutely obliterate most armoured units. Against a full unit of twelve Slayers, the only shield to ever hold is called distance.
• Executioner: The Bloodhorn minotaur will ruthlessly butcher their victims and leave no survivors if possible. Their savagery draws fear even among the most stalwart of souls. The longer that these units win their battles, the more terror they induce.
• Anti-Elite: Though some of their assaults border on suicide, death is ever certain to those that underestimate the skill of a slayer. They are trained in gladiatorial combat against great beasts and each other - where they fight to the edge between life and death. This makes them highly competent duelists that can bog down and has a high chanse of defeating elite units of opposing factions.

 

Weaknesses

• Low Armour: The low armour of the Slayers gives them a rough patch against units with good range. Long range missile units that can take them out from a distance, or spearmen, are an effective counter to the minotaur charge as they will pierce themselves harder from the meeting impacts.
• Cold Weakness: The hellish blood which courses within the veins of the Bloodhorns’ leaves them with an inherited weakness to cold. Especially against the Slayers, cryomancy is a bane which can halt an entire unit in their stride - then shatter them like crushed ice.
• Madness: From time to time, a savage madness takes over the mind of the minotaurs as they lose themselves in the flames. Regardless of their increased brutality, this phase gives them a tunnel vision that suddenly makes them easy to flank and hit in the weak points.
• Tail: With the minotaur’s balance located within their tail, a critical hit which severs the limb will stun a slayer and render them to a rapid bleedout. This is a guaranteed kill, but one should always retreat from the rampage which follows when their senses come around again.

 

Special Abilities

 

• Berserk: A state of hyperfocus which the Slayers can enter to up the advantage over a stalemate or close defeat. As they see red and their axes blaze with flames, the Slayers do direct damage to themselves and their surroundings. Caring not for the wounds they receive, as they accept death with the trade of bringing along as many foes to hell as they can.
• Breach: This tactic is often used against shield formations, even with spears. The Slayers spurn themselves to charge right into the protected frontline of the enemy. Once more embracing certain death, as they crumble the walls with both horns, hooves, and twin axes.