Cyreni's Razors

Welcome to our rundown of Cyreni’s Razors. Make sure to catch our podcast coverage of all things Deathgorge too! For everything out with this release window, follow these links:

Thanks go to GW for providing a review copy to make this content possible.

INTRODUCTION

[D]AVY, [P]HIL, & [S]KYLER

S: A hook Underworlds has in me is the unique aspects each warband brings into the game with them. Focusing on fresh ways to interact with and approach the game. Favoring design space exploration over stat creep to keep things interesting! So what fresh catch are Cyreni’s Razors hauling in with them?

Cyreni’s Razors are a fin-esse warband that will rely on a steady hand at the helm to discern when to stay back and wait for the tide to carry you in with strength, when to dangle a fighter out to bait others into your net, and when to strike quickly and early. Cyreni brings with her a way to snipe targets lined up with her position using her signature Hammertide action. Cephanyr is a wildly interesting, teleporting tank. And the warband as a whole has plenty of tools and incentives to lean into Staggering their opponent’s fighters.

With that, let’s get kraken!

Uninspired
S: Cyreni, you dreamboat! The stat line of a true Idoneth leader. A level 2 wizard with a respectable range 2 spell attack. A saucy signature ability! And an Inspire mechanic that ebbs and flows with the rounds!

P: A very well rounded leader that will probably need to do a lot of heavy lifting in this band.

Inspired
S: An extra movement speed to showcase her tidal prowess and an accuracy boost found in channeling. Modest but welcome while not overshadowing the importance of Hammertide.

Uninspired
S: Feels very aelvish! So another stat line feeling at home! (Fast, 3 wounds, lower defence, with accurate damage on deck) Looking at that attack profile, Range 2 attack actions always open up positional play and increase your threat range. Great damage and accuracy here too!

P: The survivability is my only dislike here, but everything else is so solid it makes sense to be three wounds instead of four.

Inspired
S: Inspiring into Cleave and a Scything attack, means Alathyrr here may be a bit of a problem solver for you when you are up against block-based defence and hordes respectively. In those instances, try to keep her in reserve until her inspiration hits. Then try to keep her alive so she can keep solving problems for you.

S: On the topic of gaining dodge as a success result in your defence rolls, this is a pretty mild bump but I like that it offers you some survivability against Cleave attacks.

Uninspired
S: This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!

S: I dig that regardless of which Thrall you want to keep safe and in reserve, they both offer you the same up front so you don't feel punished for choosing to go with one over the other in the early game.

Inspired
S: Renglaith has simple tastes. He just wants to spike some damage out for you. Crit for him and he'll see to it. Fail to crit and that's on you, not him. Great to see that mild defensive bump here too.

P: This inspire feels a bit lackluster when compared to his buddy. I think most of the time I'll have this guy as my more expendable fighter.

Uninspired
S: Last but naut least! Let’s dive a little deeper into our magnificent cephalopod.

First note, Cephanyr is a 5-movement flyer. That's great on its own, but with the added presence of Blocked hexes entering the scene with Deathgorge, you'll likely find it increasingly relevant.
4-Wounds offers great survivability with it commonly taking two attacks to bring you down.
1-Dodge is tough, but you've got padding in your health to cover that.
3-Fury 2-Damage attack is quite accurate and I like seeing it at R1 here with his added mobility.
And finally, that reaction! Phase Ink. Staggering a nearby fool with a proper inking and phasing on outta there to Fearsome Fortress territory. How dare they try such a thing? Attacking Cephanyr. Preposterous, and he will not stand for it! - It's fantastic to see this reaction working off both failed and successful actions. I love that it teleports him away, but I'm going to need to see this ability in practice to really grasp its potential.

Inspired
S: Adding an extra defense dice is pretty meaningful here as it increases your chances to Phase Ink without taking damage. Really dig that. Especially when you throw some guard tech into the mix. On the attack profile, an extra dice and Ensnare makes a lot of sense when you consider how many tentacles are coming at you. A great accuracy buff to keep him threatening and keep you interested in risking an inking. How dare you? What did we talk about.

Objectives

S: You're aggro, you're fast, and you've got range. Being rewarded for three charges is certainly nice, however with only 4 fighters, you want this in R1.

P: Agreed, this could easily be a dead draw as early as R2.

S: As long as you've got at least one fighter alive, this can help keep you going. Especially now that you can perform move actions while charged out. I like it.

P: Hold one in no one territory is what this looks like to me if you get the option to place a token there. That is generally not too hard to do and the squid’s ability puts him in the middle anyway so maybe some synergy there.

S: The art here is an absolute treat.

S: Not limited to attacks or activations, interesting! That serves Hammertide quite well.

S: Should be reasonably scoreable in all but the most passive of matchups.

P: Agreed. There is almost always at least one fighter moving forward in a warband. This may mean you are having to target a suboptimal fighter though. Not bad but not amazing I don't think.

S: Hello Path of Order. The change to allow move actions while charged out really elevates this previously passed on dual condition. Range 2 helps quite a bit too! I like seeing it in-house here.

P: Having this in here makes me think this warband is supposed to be flex, but we'll see how well their stats support it. I'm a little worried about having two fighters in a position to hold two.

D: Having multiple Range 2 fighters definitely helps with that.

S: Although you'd rather see dead fighters than Stagger tokens, I think this is a perfectly fine 1G End Phase for them. You can use Hammertide to score this in a fourth activation while dealing that one damage to bring a target within kill reach for the next round.

S: There's also some decent tools in their power cards to help guarantee this without a dedicated action.

P: Nothing fancy but it should be easy and that's what we like to see with one glory end phases.

S: Directly out of my deck you go. This may happen, it might, but it's a lot of work for one glory and your opponent will get a lot of chances to prevent it accidentally or intentionally.

P: Yeah... this kind of positioning game is a bit tough and probably not worth it for one glory. If you have more reasons to play this way though then maybe.

S: Love the flexibility here. Against horde? Go for their fighters. Against elite? Go for the hold. And it's speaking some tempting Fearsome Fortress lingo too.

P: The flexing continues!

S: This could be a tad tough in that it's leader reliant and you need to draw and cast gambit spells to decrease the activation cost here. Not too tough to leave out of considerations though, especially if you lean into it as a playstyle choice.

P: If wizard build becomes a thing for these guys then I like this alright but otherwise I'll pass.

S: Madness. And I'm here for it. Do not take this card without a plan to score the first mode. Be gleeful when you happen into the second mode.

P: That's quite the reason to take stagger tech. The real question becomes what is the threshold for this being viable. I'd think it's somewhere in the range of 3-5 good stagger power cards?

S: Again, not limited to attacks or activations. Stand aside Sensory Deprivation, this is my favorite of their surges. Does it score off of lethals? That's a rare yes! Pings? Check. Shenanigans? Absolutely.

D: Not lethals, though right? That's not your warband.

S: You sir... are correct. *grumble grumble*

S: Still my favorite!

P: That darn warband requirement, stealing your joy

S: Turning every end phase into full out tug of war... and we brought 12 tentacles.

P: This is a hard card to evaluate. In some matchups this is probably very simple but other times it will be an absolute slog. I think I probably keep it in Nemesis, at least to start though.

S: Similar to Lost Without a Trace, but looking at enemy territory exclusively here. With how flexible these kill surges are I don't mind the territory limitations. On first impression, I likely wouldn't take both though. I think which one you choose will largely depend on if you lean into invading aggro or counterpunch.

D: This one works with lethals!

P: Davy beat me to it! Dunk anyone but the fish.

S: Joy restored!

Gambits

S: What is this feeling? Is this what the temptation of magic feels like?

D: It is! With blocked hexes, you can potentially maneuver a friendly target to a spot out of LOS if the attacker is trying ranged shots. Pretty niche, but powerful enough to look out for.

S: This is akin to the Soulraid's Cloud of Midnight (CoM), but with a little give and take that may help keep it off Championship's restricted list (where CoM resides).

It is gated behind a kill, yes, but you also get access to your fighters' Inspired sides in all three rounds where the Soulraid are limited to Round 2 there.
This allows abilities to still push the affected fighter where CoM does not, that's a pro in my book!
This lasts across two power phases instead of CoM's one, we'll take it!
Gambit damage and effects can still sneak through when you aren't the chosen target. (ie: Lethal Ward) This piece is a downgrade from CoM, but may still come in clutch!

S: Persisting until the end of the round is great, but being limited to Inspired fighters is not considering your Idoneth are on one defence and two of them already have dodge built in as a bonus while inspired. (already at 66% success)

S: Leaves this more for Cephanyr than anyone else, but I think I pass on this when deckbuilding.

S: This does extremely little, so let me think of a scenario where you could gain the maximum benefit from this card. - You know after your turn you'll inspire. You need three enemy fighters staggered for Sensory Deprivation, so you use the Barge superaction with Cephanyr (move 5, flying). Then you play this in your power step right before inspiring so as you pass turn to your opponent your seemingly risky play now has you sitting tentacool 2 dice on guard with an ability to bounce back to mid map if anyone tries anything. - We did it! Value.

P: It's not a ton, for sure. But I think one one defense dice fighters I'll take what I can get. Still probably reaching for other things outside of nemesis.

S: A push of two hexes is enough to tempt me to take this despite not being Salvageable. If this card was restricted to Cephanyr, it would be an auto-take. As stands, it should make into my Nemesis decks but not my Champs decks.

P: Agree. But a push is a push so it probably goes in by default and then comes out as it proves itself inefficient.

S: Centre of Attention!! Spell edition. Centre is one of my favorite gambits of all time, so I'm enthusiastic to see it... even as a spell. What are these feelings?!

P: Embrace the magic, you know you want to!

S: Hmmm... within two is nice. Un-inspired is fine at the top of the round, but you don't want to draw into this card mid round or any card with that limitation. With attractive spells in-house (...who am I?) if you ever need to Salvage those and draw into cards like this as a result while inspired, you will be sad.

P: Only take when leaning very hard into stagger I think...

S: This has Sensory Deprivation written all over it. Even if you're leaving that at home, staggering one enemy fighter while charging another is fantastic. And it can persist over multiple activations? Absolute fire.

P: Even stagger the fighter you are charging if you can fly over them on your way.

S: Cool card! But man do I have difficulty stomaching a two result spell cost. The odds here are roughly 44% chance this card works when attempted with two spell dice.

P: Definitely tough, but the payoff is pretty huge. Might be worth the gamble sometimes.

S: Top of round 1 or 2? Spicy. Round 3? You need to go second or you'll inspire before you can use this. Consider in Nemesis. Drop in Championship.

P: I think if this persisted until you made a successful attack I'd be in all the way but as is I agree, just for Nemesis. The extra damage is very nice there though.

Upgrades

S: This is some seriously risky tech!

Mode 1. Majority of the time this means you are offering your opponent a supported position against your fighter in future activations.
Mode 2. You need to be adjacent to an enemy fighter when you take damage. The upside here though is that the reaction goes off before the out of action check, so you'll be able to use it even if you're suffering a killing blow.

P: Yeah I don't really get this upgrade. The reward is pretty small and the risk is quite high.

S: Decent dissuasion piece here. No one will want to strike you untill they can take you down in one hit to avoid triggering this. Which means it is more valuable prior to taking on any damage.

P: The fact this triggers whether the attack succeeded or not is pretty nice. That ups the opportunity value here though I'm not sure how much it will ultimately do in a game.

S: At one defense dice, you're often going to need that crit! Take this and may the depths be with you!

P: Put your fighters in one and a half dice essentially. Pretty decent defense boost.

S: Loooove. That is all.

P: This is so incredibly flexible but will require a decent amount of planning to get the most out of it. Pretty wonderful that it triggers on move action and not activation!

S: This is awkward on Alathyrr & Renglaith, but excellent on Cephanyr.

P: A bit, but I'd take the defense boost on the twins in a pinch.

S: +1 Dice for any fighter at Ranges 1 & 2? You want this in every game as early as you can get it.

P: Yup, doesn't get much better

S: So that's what the lantern does! The value of this is higher than seasons prior with move after charging unlocked. You're essentially replacing one card in your power deck with another single glory End Phase. We've seen this before and I've always felt it to be an interesting give and take. I'm definitely going to mess around with it!

P: Even with the rules change a single glory in a third end phase may not be efficient enough to make the cut, upgrade quality is so much higher that you can't usually afford a dead upgrade until the very end of the game. In Nemesis I could see this maybe sneaking out a glory but it is still clunky to get it to trigger.

S: Limited to Alathyrr & Renglaith. +1 Wound can go a long way, especially moving from 3 wounds to 4. That's pretty comfortably outside of one shot range without power tools.

P: Especially in Nemesis where some bands have little to no access to boosted damage. An easy inclusion.

S: Armour of the Cythai (AotC). Another Soulraid kinship here. This can really help raise the effectiveness of that single dice defence. And unlike AotC this isn't restricted to just your Idoneth fighters.

P: I often underrate this effect to my detriment as a player. This should be an automatic include in Nemesis and something you strongly consider in Champs. Unlike Shadespire, there is a lot of range two and three threats in the game now though.

S: Comparing this to Cyreni's attack profile. It gives her a range boost, knockback 2(?!), and stagger. There's quite a bit of reason there to take and experiment with this. I, for one, am looking forward to launching someone out of Charge range.

P: The fact that this is a range three knock back two attack is pretty crazy. You can end up with the fighter a full six hexes away after the attack if you can succeed. For some warbands that is effectively taking the fighter out of the game. I like the control potential a lot

Summary

S: One thing’s for shore, I’m excited about this release! The read I have on Cyreni’s Razors so far is a flex warband that is looking to hold back and lure their opponent in as much as possible. In the meantide, they can lean on Hammertide to start laying down damage and bide time for their inspiration to turn them up. As the game goes on, so does the amount of time they’ll get to spend inspired. I think this game plan is especially true into elite warbands, whereas with horde and hold warbands they’ll turn into the aggressors.

There’s a bit of a pull towards Fearsome Fortress territory in their objectives and with Cephanyr’s reaction landing him there. Your matchups will help you determine when to push into that position as you very much so want to be reacting to your opponent more than setting the tempo given how glass cannon-like your Thralls are, how important your leader is, and how strong Cephanyr is once inspired. Their objectives also come with some extremely flexible kill surges and good reason to lean into Staggering - which both this warband’s signature fighters can help you with innately.

For more, tune in soon to our dedicated deep dive episode covering the warband!

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What deck are you eager to pair them with? Are you working on a mad science Hammertide x12 build? Let us know!

The Mortal RealmsOctober 7, 2023Comment