Step by Step - Vol. 1

As I was debating what to write for my first article, I realized that it might be helpful for new players (and interesting for experienced players) to read about the process that goes into playing a new warband and prepping for tournaments. I want to go through all of it, starting with picking a warband, going through the deck building and refining process and even sharing painting updates.

My intent with this series is to not only walk through my tournament preparation process, but to help me choose and focus on a warband for a while. I’m uncertain how long I will run this series, but I plan to run it at least through Adepticon in late March this year. I’m aiming for this to be a bi-weekly series, but they may come more or less often depending on how frequently I discover something new that I want to share.

This first entry will serve as an initial review of the warband, and I’ll go through my first thoughts on how to approach them.

With all that out of the way, it’s time to select a warband.

Warband Selection

I’ll start my search for a warband with the starter set before looking to a grand alliance box. 

Unfortunately, I don’t love either warband in the starter set for different reasons, but I will have to look elsewhere. I absolutely think that Emberwatch has legs competitively, they’re just not for me. I’m not overly high on their theme, and their warscroll feels very generic, even though the abilities are quite strong. Zikkit’s Tunnelpack sort of has the opposite problem, I think they're fun, but I find them lacking competitively and am not the biggest Skaven fan, though this is my favorite of the ones in the game. This means that I will need to purchase another box to find my warband. The Death box is the one that appeals to me the most, so I’ll be looking there for my warband.

Since I don’t want to dive in on either of the starter set warbands, that means we’ll be pulling from the death box. This gives us four options: Crimson Court, Kainan’s Reapers, Headsman’s Curse and The Grymwatch. The Crimson Court models are fantastic, but getting to their (admittedly good) inspired sides seems rather difficult and costly. Add that all but one of their warscroll abilities requires this inspiration or has some other cost, and I don’t think they will be able to consistently compete at the highest level competitively. Both Kainan and the Grymwatch look to be very interesting to play and I quite like their aesthetics (especially Grymwatch). However, both warbands really seem to want a take and hold playstyle that I don’t tend to lean into as often. I will likely bring both out for casual play at my local game nights but will not be choosing either of them for my first main warband of the second edition.

This means I will be going with Headsman’s Curse. Not only do I really like their theme and think they’re quite strong, but I have some experience with them in the first edition, so I know I like their playstyle. I took them to the NOVA open and piloted them to a respectable fifth place finish, and thus they’ve earned their spot for me this edition. Since I waffled on my warband choice for NOVA and picked Headsmen up shortly before the event, I had to borrow painted models to use at the tournament. So, I still need to paint them myself. All of this makes them an easy selection for my first focus of this edition.

Now let’s take a look at what they bring to the table.

Inspire Condition

A straightforward inspire condition, all we need to do is land an attack. This also gives us an idea of what kind of decks we want to use. The biggest questions will be how many fighters we can get inspired each round and how much damage we will waste to get those fighters inspired. We will see this more in depth later, but we have the potential to do a large amount of damage in a single attack, so not killing the condemned fighter before we inspire the fighters we want will be somewhat of a balancing act.

Condemnation

We need to have the Scriptor in harm's way in order to condemn a fighter. While this isn't ideal, we'll need to do it to access inspiration, as well as get some card draw for slaying said fighter. With this being our only way to condemn a fighter, we will only have one opportunity each round to do so. This means that positioning the Scriptor well will be of the utmost importance. The extra card draw for slaying the condemned fighter will be something that we should shoot for, but it will take some games to find the right balance between going for the cards early and inspiring more fighters. My first instinct is to pick a fighter with at least 3-4 wounds, at least in the first round. This way we can get two of our fighters inspired before we slay the fighter for the cards and we won't waste much damage on an attack for our heavy hitters when we go for the kill. This strategy will change depending on which warband my opponent is playing. I'm not sure that condemning a Gorlok Blackpowder or Mollog in the first round is the way to go, but I will have to test it to find out. Who to condemn and when will likely be a continuous topic in this series so I will leave it there for the moment and report back as I get games in and discover new strategies.

Warscroll Abilities

Eternal Duty

This ability is almost the same as the one that they had in the first edition. The difference being that this can only be done once per game. There were times in the previous edition where I would raise the Bearer 2-3 times and the Scriptor another 1-2 times. With this being only once per game now, we'll have to be more careful about when to use it. I’m guessing that it'll often be used when the Scriptor is slain early and we want to get more out of the condemn mechanic, but there will also be times when bringing back the Bearer of the Block to continue to have that second major damage threat will be the right call.

Whet the Blade

This is likely an early game ability as it will become difficult to get the Sharpener in a spot where he can be adjacent to the Wielder for an attack. He'll likely be slain or way out of position since he’s the last fighter we want to use for attacks. My thought is to set up the Wielder and the sharpener adjacent to each other at the start of the game to use this ability to threaten four damage in the first activation if our opponent decides to try to come in and hit the Wielder early. I think the first time that this ability can be used (and is actually impactful) it should be, ideally in combination with the Sharpener flanking the target.

Discorporate

A once per game teleport at the cost of an action. This feels like it will be massively impactful in some games and go unused in others. Notably this doesn’t hand out a token of any kind and you can use this on a fighter with a charge token, since that only prevents you from taking a move, attack or guard action unless all fighters have a charge token. Instead of making a low impact charge with the Sharpener, this could allow you to set up a Wielder attack in the next round or to get the Scriptor in range to condemn at a time when your opponent probably thought they had played around it. There's also some potential to get a fighter on a treasure token they otherwise couldn't reach.

Cackling Court

When this ability is used it means that each die in the attack has at least a 5/6 chance to be a success. This means that the attack is very likely to be successful. This also means that it is significantly more helpful for the Scriptor and the Sharpener since those fighters have more dice that are less accurate in their attacks. They also do less damage, so we'll probably not want to use it on their attacks unless we really just need one to go through. Like Whet the Blade this feels like something you use as soon as you can, as long as it will be impactful. There is no specific fighter requirement, so this does have some more versatility, but flanking an enemy is sometimes easier said than done. However, we want to bring a lot of pushes and potentially some guard tech, so we may be able to set this up more than I am anticipating.

For the most part, the abilities on the warscroll point us towards a more attack oriented playstyle. As we go through the fighter cards, we'll see that those also point us towards an aggressive gameplan. There's nothing on the warscroll that feels gamebreaking, but everything seems to have a purpose and provides a solid base for us to build on.

Fighter Cards

Wielder of the Blade

Four move is also nice, this means he can threaten a large amount of the board, especially if we place him well at the start of the game. Two dodge and five health means this guy will be quite survivable, especially if we can put some guard tech into the deck. Do be aware that he will likely be a high priority target for your opponent due to his strength and three glory bounty. Four move is also nice, this means he can threaten a large amount of the board, especially if we place him well at the start of the game. All that being said, the calling card for the Wielder is his three damage attack off the jump. This is massively threatening to just about any fighter, add in inspiring/drawing cards for attacking a condemned fighter and you have a rather large deterrent bubble.

The only thing that changes when he inspires is his damage characteristic. However this is a rather large change as he is the only fighter in the game that has a printed four damage attack. Other fighters can get there with grievous, but this prevents the use of other attack runemarks, most notably cleve. This also means that we can add grievous to the attack, allowing for a potential five damage attack. This won't often come into play, but does leave the door open for a late game one shot attack on a stormcast or some other elite fighter. While two hammers is a respectable attack, it is just asking for more accuracy, either through more dice, rerolls or a runemark.

Bearer of the Block

Four health is nice, but one dodge means that he is likely to get hit if your opponent goes after him. With four move he can threaten a rather large area without being placed in immediate danger of slower heavy hitters. Two damage on two hammers is a totally reasonable attack and means that he is our backup damage dealer if the Wielder either misses his attacks or goes down early.

The extra defense die alone makes his inspiration important, throw in grievous on his attack and he becomes a very strong fighter. This is especially true for games in which the Wielder is slain early. In matchups where your opponent has few, if any four health fighters inspiring the Bearer will be significantly more important than the Wielder.

Of note, a slain fighter is uninspired, so if you bring the Bearer (or any fighter) back with Eternal Duty he will need to be inspired again to access the two dodge and three damage profile again.

Scriptor of the Sentence

Another 4 health, 1 dodge fighter. This time we can’t hide him before he gets inspired since we need him within 5 of an enemy fighter to condemn them. We’ll need to balance keeping him safe and being within condemnation range at the start of the game. Four speed and range three means he has an effective threat range of seven, which is massive, but only one damage means he isn’t much of a threat in that regard. Still, he may just be the most impactful fighter in the game without at least a two damage attack, especially considering he is still only worth one glory in bounty.

As with the Bearer, the second defense dice alone is worth trying to get him inspired. The only other change is that he gains stagger on his attack. This is nice and will help our other fighters be more accurate, but isn’t nearly as big of a deal.

Because of his importance to the rest of our gameplan, I’m thinking that he will often be my first activation. Getting him inspired for that extra defense is going to make him much more survivable and fuel our other inspirations and give us some card draw.

Sharpener of the Blade

Our smallest boy, his stats are not overly impressive and he’s not likely to do much work for us. His greatest value will be in whetting the blade of the Wielder. My first instinct is to place him near the Wielder at the start of the game and dare our opponents to come in and risk an early four damage attack. With two dodge he may be able to survive a swing or two, but they will inevitably fail us at some point and with only two health that will be the end for him. Luckily he’s only one bounty, so it won’t be a big loss.

I’m seriously doubting that it will ever be the right call to bring him back with eternal duty (even if he’s the only slain fighter) since the other two are significantly more impactful to our gameplan.

Gaining crit grievous is nice and makes him a bigger threat. However, to get inspired he will have to successfully attack and in an ideal world, we won’t need him to attack at all. I doubt I will be seeing much of this side of his card, if I do things have probably gone poorly.

Initial Deck Thoughts

The warscroll abilities and fighter cards definitely lean into a more aggressive deck. If they remain true to their first edition playstyle (and they seem to), we should be leaning more towards playing a sort of counter punch style of strike to deal with other more aggressive warbands. The first thought is to combine the two strike decks we currently have and just go all out aggro and see how that goes.

I think there could also be some play with Countdown to Cataclysm as it has some two glory end phases we can get fairly easily along with a couple of push cards to support our game plan of making as many attacks with the Wielder as possible.

I’m still uncertain about Wrack and Ruin in general as a deck, so I’ll have to throw together a deck with it at some point to see if there's anything there for these guys.

Emberstone Sentinels and Pillage and Plunder demand that we stand on feature tokens more than we will probably want to with our generally lower attack range, so these are lower on my list to try here.

Eventually I aim to try a variety of deck pairings, but my first games will likely contain one or both of the strike decks as these seem to be the most logical fits.

Next Steps

Now that we’ve taken a look at the warband and thought about what we want to do with them, it’s time to put them on the table and see how they do. The next entry in this series will report on the first games I play and lessons that I learn from those. 

Until then; judge, lest ye be judged for the punishment is always death.

-Zach “TheMisterDoctor” WTH?!