Intro
In one of our first expansion warbands, the Jaws of Itzl shows us some new Seraphon, a faction I am personally very glad to see get some more representation in the Underworlds! Definitely glad to see a bit of a different spin on the faction as well, bringing in a more elite warband full of saurus warriors with some stunning miniatures, I have to say. They’ve been designated as a Strike warband by the designers, and just a quick look at the models probably tells you they can definitely pack a punch. Let’s get into their rules!
Warscroll
Inspire
Each time an enemy fighter is dealt damage in your opponent’s action or power step, you get to pick one of your fighters to inspire. More specifically, the wording states “after inflicting damage…” While this is relatively active phrasing from which you might infer that you need to be the one inflicting that damage, I think this might just be equivalent to “after damage is inflicted on an enemy fighter…” A small distinction, but clarity on this front will be important to determine whether you need to use an ability which damages that fighter or your opponent damaging their own fighter also counts. In either case, you’re more likely the one to be dealing the damage anyway, so evaluating it strictly on that basis I think it will be quite good. There are a number of ping cards available in the game already, and playing these during your opponents turn will, in and of itself, open up a good number of opportunities for you to inspire before we even discuss the warscroll abilities. This seems quite a solid inspiration condition, nice and controllable too.
Predatory Fighters
The first of the reusable abilities on the warscroll, Predatory Fighters is a surge ability you can use after a failed attack targeting a friendly Saurus, if the Save roll contained any Shield results, to inflict 1 damage on the attacker. Being reusable, this is a fantastic way to spread out chip damage, and it, funnily enough, does not have any kind of range restriction either. While it’s not going to proc every time, getting that damage and inspiration is going to feel quite nice. As a base example, 2H vs. 1S will fail 50% of the time, and you’ll roll a Shield on 33% of those instances for a net ~17% chance to get the ping. Not going to happen all the time, but will feel amazing when it does since you’ll also be inspiring one of your fighters. Definitely good incentive to pack in some +Save tech.
Instinctual Control
Instinctual Control is our next ability, which triggers when a friendly Saurus picks an enemy fighter as the target of an attack action. In doing so, you get to move your minion (so long as they previously did not have any move or charge tokens). With no restrictions about where they can land, the flexibility on this ability is excellent. Move in for support or hop onto a token to set up some positional scoring. Plenty you could do with it.
Savage Mauling
In a power step, you can choose an enemy fighter adjacent to a damaged friendly Saurus with no charge tokens and roll an attack die for each damage token on that Saurus. Each sword or crit results inflicts one point of damage on that enemy fighter. Normally once per game, this ability can be refreshed if it slays an enemy fighter. That’s a lot of words but holy moly can this ability go off if you roll hot. Generally, you’ll want to set it up to finish off vulnerable fighters in order to keep using it, but no harm in going for it if you have a heavily damaged fighter in position to potentially make a game-altering play. Cards like Great Fortitude will synergize well to increase your capacity for damage tokens, as will cards like Utter Ignorance, which can make sure you get that chance at a fully loaded Savage Mauling. There will certainly be games where it doesn’t work out, but even getting to finish off even one fighter with this ability will be great value.
Obstinate
A true once-per-game ability, Obstinate prevents the chosen friendly Saurus from being driven back for an entire round. Given the bulk we will see on these guys, that is going to give you some excellent staying power for wherever you need to hold your ground. Great synergy with hold surges (particularly since many of them require you to hold after your opponent’s action step), but also just to set up some big Savage Mauling plays or even just take a swing back on an enemy fighter without having to charge them back.
Fighters
The warband’s leader is Kro-Jax, who stacks a pretty daunting physical profile at 3 Move, 1 Shield, 5 Health, with 3 Bounty. His weapon is also quite impressive, starting at 1R/2H/3D, which is an enviable attack profile in this edition. If that wasn’t enough, he inspires to 2 Shields on his Save characteristic and jumps to 1R/4S/3D inspired, which is fantastic, particularly to combo with potential support off things like Instinctual Control. Short of a leader-centric “big boy” warband, these appear to be about as good as it gets for a fighter card in this edition. Inspired, he’s got damage, accuracy, and bulk. Sure, he’s just a bit slow, but there are plenty of ways to fix that in the universal card pool.
Next up is Ro-Tak, who also has some solid bulk at 3 Move, 1 Shield, 5 Health, and 2 Bounty. His weapons aren’t quite as threatening at 1R/2H/2D and 2R/2H/1D, but these are decent enough for starters. However, we once again have a really nice inspired attack at 2R/4S/2D, which is a great jumping off point for Range 2 in this edition. He doesn’t get any additional buffs, but you should be getting out enough ping early that, even if you want your leader up and running first, he should follow soon thereafter.
Our last fighter of significant consequence, So-Kar mirrors Ro-Tak at 3 Move, 1 Shield, 5 Health, and 2 Bounty. His weapon is the least threatening at still a very respectable 1R/3S/2D, again especially if you are accessing support from somewhere. Carving out a little niche for himself as well, he inspires to be the only of the Saurus in the warband to have 4 Move while also adding a die and critical grievous to his attack profile. All three of these guys look like phenomenal pieces, and it’s really good to see them each have a unique set of stats from each other.
The last fighter in the warband is (are?) Sotek’s Venomites, which just makes for an awesome mini in a warband full of them. Not much to write home about from a statistical perspective at 3 Move, 2 Dodge, 1 Health, 0 Bounty with a 1R/2S/1D weapon profile. Little reason to inspire them, only adding a die and stagger to their attack, but they are clearly a support piece and they should do a great job at that. Might have liked them to have 2 Health instead of 1 just to avoid nasty ping kills, but 2 Dodge and 0 Bounty is still a big win for them.
Conclusion
In case you couldn’t tell, I think the designers did a great job with this warband. Each fighter is unique and potent in their own way, the warscroll abilities are all good-to-great, and the credit to the sculptors for doing fantastic work. I am actually a little bit worried that they might be too good, this looks like one of the strongest second edition warbands we’ve reviewed so far. Potential sticking points will be how often we see big Savage Mauling spikes and the fact that Predatory Fighters works at any Range and can conceivably kill a vulnerable enemy fighter just for making an attack.
As for Nemesis pairings, a few ways you could go here, but I really like Reckless Fury as a starting point. Utter Ignorance is going to be a great way to set up big Savage Mauling plays, while you also get to bring in some other great power card support for the warband like Blade Catcher, Get it Done, and Headlong Charge, just to name a few. The high Bounty characteristics of each of these fighters, in combination with their general bulk, opens up a number of objectives in the deck as well. As for the deck pairing, Wrack and Ruin is probably my next go-to just to spam out some ping to start getting fighters inspired. Still, some honorable mentions to Blazing Assault (crazy good power card and surge support, as always) and CtC, which has some good ping in its own respect as well, with Utter Conviction upping your Predatory Fighters odds as well.
Really hyped to see these guys on the table, you can bet I’m going to be picking up a copy! Let us know if you’ll be joining in on the action and, of course, we wish you the best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory!
