Domitan's Stormcoven
Welcome to our quick rundown of all the new Domitan’s Stormcoven cards Make sure you catch our podcast coverage, of the release. As usual, thanks to GW for the review copy of Wyrdhollow.
For coverage of the other cards in the release, follow these links:
Seismic Shock Universal Rivals Deck
Toxic Terrors Universal Rivals Deck
First Impressions
[D]AVY & [P]HIL
A three caster warband! Any one of them can be a level 2! Inspire on demand! Our first impression was that these guys seem really powerful and the bullies of the box. But as we played more, we found that it was a little more complicated than that. Phil’s comments came before we played any games, Davy’s after so they are informed by different levels of experience.
P: The first warband without a single leader! The name sake of the warband starts with fairly predictable stormcast stats, but having range two and range three out the gate makes for a flexible fighter.
P: Important to note that wizard level and spell attacks are not tied together uninspired. This feels like a nice balancing mechanic for gambit spells.
D: Going to a large fighter inspired but just one block is preeeetty awkward. But range two, 3 damage is hot fire.
P: Getting extra damage and cleave makes this guy pretty scary when inspired. The extra wound is a bit odd for a warband that is going to be cycling in and out of inspiration pretty frequently. Will need to be careful not to kill this guy when you uninspire him.
D: That stagger splash is a pretty big radius and can boost his high damage inspired attack…
P: Flying speed four with a range two attacks means this knight is coming in on pretty much whoever she wants. The flexibility of attacks continues to be a strength and will probably be very annoying how many attacks these fighters can make without charging.
D: Getting two block and giving +1 move and flying to your other fighters makes her feel like a safe early inspire plus charge to risk sending forward.
P: Kind of an odd inspire here. Going to two damage on her range three is nice but you may want to inspire her early to move your other fighters? The rotating inspire mechanic is very interesting and means planning out your activations will be very important.
P: Wow, starting on three smash for his staff attack is pretty nice. Otherwise it seems we have three fighters that are basically the same uninspired. I'm not sure who you choose to activate first to start the inspiration change ups. I suppose it is also good to know that the inspire is a reaction so you don't have to cycle the inspired fighter but I would think you would want to more often than not.
D: Scouring on inspired means he’s also got a conditional three damage when inspired which is nifty. Order’s Gorl, amirite?
P: Dang, sidestep after he inspires? That has a lot of use. Watch out for this guy suddenly jumping in damage and pushing into range to charge someone!
Objectives
P: Trivial score. You can just go on guard twice and score this if you don't want to commit forward. Strong and flexible.
D: Since I have the advantage of writing my comments after we got some reps, I get to pretend I’m smarter than Phil. We found this a little tougher than it first seemed in practice, because there’s already a ton of pressure on the timing and the order in which you inspire your fighters. Still good— but not quite as buttery smooth as we thought it’d be.
P: Four successful spells is a bit of a big ask but the reward is worth it. If this warband starts just slinging spells probably try to get away from them...
D: It helps that Domitan is casting on channels and can stagger folks. You’re gonna want to land at least a couple spell attacks. Even then, you’ve gotta be pretty heavy on gambit spells. That said, this is a 2 glory surge that isn’t generally going to force you into charging headlong into the enemy. So… if you wanna build for it, that’s legit.
P: I think again we will need clarification if the charge action is a different action type itself. If it is a single charge gets you three of the four...
D: This is like… four distinct actions, right? Do different kinds of attack actions count separately? I do like that it’s a 2 glory EP that you can score if you’re down to one fighter.
P: In the past I would worry about someone seeing this coming and pushing one fighter. Now though, there is so little push tech it may be very hard to stop this.
D: That positioning requirement is pretty lax. Might be something for a high reliability deck, low ceiling deck?
P: A slightly easier branching fate is quite good. I'm sure there will still be frustrating times where this just doesn't come up. Obviously the ideal will be roll crit success, kill, and score this.
D: I know I’m going to hate this at times when it just. won’t. land. It may be pushing you into a spell attack action when you’d rather take one of the other attacks, too. Still worth playing around with for sure. And there’s no requirement to be successful.
P: Charge across the line and make a spell attack feels like the most likely situation where this happens but being able to do it in the power step is nice too.
D: Surges that can score in the power step have often seemed surprisingly powerful. The position requirement is necessary to keep this from being too passive, but getting on an objective in no man’s land isn’t too big an ask.
P: Easier early than late. Lose two fighters and this is dead. Maybe worth trying to mull for it round one.
D: Our experience has been that pushing aggressively forward can be pretty taxing. With only one fighter inspired at any time, you always end up with someone in a vulnerable position on just a single defense die. Having to hand off the inspire multiple times will force that situation even moreso.
P: Similar to path to glory or path to order but limited to a spell kill. Probably still a strong play. Will definitely want to try to block objectives when playing against these guys.
D: Holding in enemy territory again! If you can get enough defensive tech built in to your deck it may open some of these invading style cards. Lots of 2 glory end phases available, but the question will be if the positioning asks are too big.
P: Just have 1 fighter on an objective in enemy territory for 2?! That's crazy.
D: Watch out for that late Confusion gambit. If you haven’t seen a theme yet, you’re not paying attention!
P: Don't love kill surges but this one should be pretty reasonable. Can pick it up in the power phase which is pretty great.
D: Yeah, asking for some ping action. Not to get too far ahead, but there’s some stuff in Seismic Shock that manipulates objectives or pings, and both those seem very desirable for a fair amount of this deck.
P: After working so hard to take passive play out of the game they decided the stormcast needed some extra love and bent the rules. Auto include I would think.
D: Yyyyess, but… this is a easy score from three charges. But I think you better build for really passive play if you want to score this later. Fewer fighters means forgoing attack actions here, which are often available with all your range.
P: This will happen at some point but maybe not a solid one glory because it will probably happen late?
D: I think this is fine in Rivals, borderline in Nemesis and probably gets cut in Champs.
Man… a lot of objectives that overlap for casting and holding in enemy territory. It’s nice to be able to focus your efforts on a few tasks that score multiple objectives. It really does feel like surviving in enemy territory might be a bigger ask then we at first thought.
Gambits
P: I'm not sure the set up to do this is all that good. However, getting a reroll again an enemy fighter for a few attacks could make this worth while.
D: Yeah, adjacent is a bit much to ask of a warband that will be trying to leverage some quality range 2 and 3 attacks.
P: -1 dice for adjacent enemies is really annoying having dealt with upgrades that do the same thing. If this is limited to one round is it still as annoying? Probably not but still seems decent if there is one fighter you really want to protect.
D: Situationally pretty great if you get in tight on a fighter that will want to attack repeatedly from a single spot without having to charge. We noted the need for survivability with the faction objectives, which makes this more attractive.
P: Solid ping, feels like an auto include to me.
D: I think if it was just range 3, you’d probably consider it. The ability to reach out to range 5 is icing on the cake.
P: Pretty decent if you can even just get two attacks with this reroll.
D: Easy to cast on a channel, makes your attack actions (and thus spell attacks) more accurate. Pretty attractive in a deck that’s counting on landing a bunch of spells.
P: Pushing enemy fighters is hard to come by these days so I'm thinking this is pretty solid disruption, especially since many decks care about positioning these days. Not distraction but still solid.
D: Whoa! Anyone who’s had their heart broken by Howling Vortex from Thorns of the Briar Queen knows that even a smaller version is a pain. I like this quite a bit.
P: Certain warbands will hate to see this. Even just clipping one extra fighter makes this quite good. More than one and suddenly this is one of the best pings in the game. Exiled dead watch out!
D: Weirdly doesn’t work on the fighter you just hit. You could end up with board states where this is just straight dead.
P: Damn. We haven't seen one of these in a minute. Get the fighter you want inspired up now is sooo good.
D: Can give you a way to trigger multiple inspire reactions (like Dom’s Stagger and Sarp’s push. Can make some of your objectives a little easier/faster too.
P: Depending on match up this could be very annoying but I think on average this isn't too great.
D: Feels like a very slow ping that might just not go off.
P: Dice and speed for a charge is pretty brutal but there can be better one off accuracy boosts. Nemesis though? This will be very solid.
D: A little ho hum, just being only a little better than determined effort. Will help with Spell Attack actions, though.
P: Man -1 damage for a round is super rude. Obviously this could just be a kill too so find the best use for the moment.
D: I like that this is modal- in the sense that you might really want it for the ping, maybe for the debuff, and sometimes for both.
Seven gambit spells is enough to potentially get the motor running for the more “casty” objectives you’ll be locked into for Rivals, though you will want to do some swapping when playing formats that permit it.
Upgrades
P: Yeesh. The staff attacks on these guys are pretty deadly. At range three they can start going nuts with high accuracy high damage attacks from range.
D: Weird interactions with some accuracy and damage boosting cards. This will shut off things like Great Strength (I think). But man… Domitan and range 3, damage 3 is wild. Really extends the utility of a single fighter in the late game.
P: Yeesh. The staff attacks on these guys are pretty deadly. At range three they can start going nuts with high accuracy high damage attacks from range.
D: Yeah, pretty clunky setup. Fighter’s Ferocity is restricted in champs which keeps it from being an auto improvement. But this is a lot worse than Great Strength, for example.
P: Cool that it is cleave and ensnare but only one damage doesn't feel good enough.
D: Yyyyeah. What a weird one. I guess it’s pretty accurate with cleave/ensare?
P: Is staggering probably two fighters after a successful cast worth it? I think not. Although, knock back two could allow for a set fighter to keep enemies at a distance which can be game winning.
D: It’s not even a cast, though! Which is super weird. Like… super weird. Pretty situational when Domitan’s already got a range 3 attack action.
P: So charge into a spell attack and then just have a move token? That is solid for trying to play the positioning game.
D: Feels situationally cool? If you can land that first spell attack action as part of a charge, it lets you keep the charged fighter as your inspired “turret” with improved defense and continue attacking without pushing other fighters in.
P: Really nice. Any successful spells with damage become a distraction too. Some of the pings that can hit multiple targets suddenly become a game of billiards as all the fighters go flying!
D: Wow, I really like giving push modality to any of your pings. That’s wild flexibility. Works with spell attack actions for “Bend it like Beckham” style knockback that can go around corners or take better advantage of lethals.
P: This is a pretty solid. Worst case it is likely a single draw to replace itself. More likely you can get two which is plenty to make this playable.
D: Late in the game, it just replaces itself. I think it’s fine. And I think I’ve undervalued draw tech in the past, so I think you’re totally fine to take this one. And if it goes off on a gambit spell, it feels really good.
P: Really nice. Rerolls are great and these guys will want to get spells off so this will help a lot.
D: 100% yes please. Really increases the odds of successfully casting a lot of your stuff. And nothing breaks your spirit faster than whiffing those single focus or channel gambits.
P: Range boosts have never seemed worth it to me. There are probably some situations for this but not enough to always take it.
D: Proooobably not, but there’ll be rivals games where this really lets you turret with a tanked up fighter which will feel pretty decent.
P: Not a lot of good uses for this. The ability is certainly good but the number of spells that use focus isn't that high. Probably best as an accuracy boost for spell attacks but that's still not that great.
D: Feels like something to keep in mind if and when the universal spells continue to expand. If you can find innate channel you really ride the combo train to some craziness.
Summary
Our first impression was that these guys seemed like easy mode. Inspire whenever you want, with some really solid attack actions and a lot of overlap on some high scoring objectives. But our experience so far showed us that it’s a really tricky puzzle to plan out who will activate and who will inspire at what point in a given round. I’m really looking forward to seeing someone unlock the full potential of this warband.