Intro
The Looncourt first appeared in the Gnarlwood expansion and are back with a gittish vengeance in Embergard. An alternative take on the 7-fighter horde warband, they lack both the movement shenanigans and the extra bodies (whether by starting with more or having access to Raised fighters) of warbands like the Sepulchral Guard, the Thorns of the Briar Queen, or Zarbag’s Gitz. Instead, they once made do with generally superior offensive and defensive stats, and now have some interesting Quest mechanics, as we will see below.
Warscroll
Inspire
The Looncourt do not actually have an inspire condition in the same manner as other warbands – in proper thematic form, they must go on Quests and the reward for most completing these quests includes inspiring friendly fighters. There are four Quests; simply choosing to attempt a quest offers a benefit to some of your fighters (see I Dub Thee below). While you can abandon a Quest at any time, you cannot attempt multiple Quests simultaneously and you cannot attempt a Quest again if you have attempted and completed (or abandoned) it previously.
I Dub Thee…
Another ability interacting with Quests, once per battle round before you use a core ability with a Loonknight, you may Dub them for that battle round. Dubbed fighters gain various benefits depending on the Quests you have attempted or are currently attempting. Note: all your fighters, other than you Leader, have the Loonknight runemark.
Quest: Conquer Da Realm
This first quest no bonus to your Dubbed fighter but is relatively trivial to complete, requiring you to hold 2 or more treasure tokens and be holding more than your opponent. The reward for this quest inspires 1 of your Loonknights; in addition, if your Dubbed fighter is holding a treasure token when you complete this, you will also inspire you Leader and draw 2 power cards. Not a bad payoff for something you likely want to do anyway, early in the game.
Quest: Go Forth and Wallop
This quest offers +1 move to your Dubbed fighter and is completed simply by ending an action step with 2 or more friendly fighters in enemy territory. Your reward is 2 inspires for your Loonknights, and, if your Leader was among the fighters in enemy territory, he can inspire as well. While the payoff for this one helps you to complete it, trying too hard to complete this early may likely lead to significant casualties in some matchups. Still, with pushes or teleport ploys to help, this could also be quite trivial to achieve and leave yourself in a position to flow right into Conquer Da Realm or one of your other quests, and just for attempting this quest your Dubbed fighter will get +1 move for the game.
Quest: Slay Da Horde
This quest gives a more exciting bonus for attempting it: +1 dice for your Dubbed fighter’s melee weapons. Similarly, it doesn’t ask too much of us to complete, as killing 2 bounty value of enemies is frequently going to be only a single fighter and even in cases where it is not, is likely to require dealing no more than 4-5 damage to enemies. The reward for this one is slightly lesser than most of your other quests, only inspiring a single fighter (though it does not specify Loonknight, so you could choose your Leader with this). If any of the enemies slain to complete this were slain by your Dubbed fighter(s), you can inspire a Loonknight and your Leader instead. I think the real reward for this one is the +1 dice to the fighter of your choice, but the requirement to complete it can also often be met immediately after the action step in which you begin attempting this quest, and the bonus payoff for this quest is exactly in line with how you want to play anyway.
Quest: Slay Da Scary Fing
This final quest offers perhaps the most powerful boon just for attempting it but is also the most matchup-dependent, as some warbands will not have any fighters which meet the criteria for you to benefit from this boon or complete this Quest. Still, as in theory this is the most difficult quest, it offers the greatest (well, 2nd greatest in my book – drawing power cards is worth more than inspiring to me usually) reward, inspiring 2 Loonknights and your Leader. Depending on your opponent, you may not bother attempting this at all, but in the matchups where this is useful it will also frequently be immediately completed after you’ve chosen to attempt it if you are able to soften enemies up before benefiting from Grievous on your attacks, and in most elite matchups you can complete this quest and the previous one by doing the same things for back-to-back activations; granting one of your fighters +1 attack dice and Grievous against more elite fighters is quite likely to be a huge glow up for them.
Fighters
First up, our Leader, Grinkrak the Great is fairly solid for a tiny goblin. 3 Health and 1 block are not very exciting defensive characteristics, 3 move is fairly standard, but he is only 1 bounty and starts out with 2 base damage on an attack of average accuracy, so expecting more might be a bit greedy. Once inspired he gains a single additional die for a very respectable melee attack, but nothing else. As leaders go, he’s a bit underwhelming, and I’d like to have seen additional save for him once he inspires as he’s relatively harder to inspire than the rest, but as you are no longer depending on him to survive to inspire your fighters, he can be safely used as simply a solid hitter.
Our next fighter, and first Loonknight, Grib starts off with an above-average move of 4, the same health and save as Grinkrak, and while his attack is less accurate it has 2 range and starts the game with grievous. Once Grib inspires, he goes up to 2 dodge, gains Flying, and an additional attack dice. Factoring in that he could be Dubbed for +1 move and +1 dice, he seems very scary indeed, and is still worth only a single bounty to your enemy.
Continuing through our Loonknights, Snark is the first of our more fragile fighters, clocking in with only 2 health. However, he respectably still begins with 2 base damage, and while his accuracy is similarly lacklustre early, once inspired he gains an attack dice and if you choose him to be Dubbed and stack up those questin’ bonuses he starts to look like a nice fire-and-forget torpedo.
Skolko and Pronk are the slowpoke of the warband with only 2 move, but they do have 3 health and a range 4 attack with cleave. While the accuracy is a bit underwhelming uninspired, once you can get them inspired they gain 1 attack die and an additional save, making them very tanky at 2 block. Unfortunately the only Quest bonus this fighter can gain is +1 move, but ranged attacks are always useful, especially ranged attacks with cleave.
Another ranged attacker, Snorbo is impressively fragile at 2 health and only 1 dodge, but he does have a range 3 attack with Stagger, and once inspired becomes 2 dodge and greatly improves the accuracy of his ranged attack. Like Skolko and Pronk, he can only minimally benefit from the questin’ bonuses, but some weapon upgrades could fix that.
The penultimate Loonknight, Nagz is unexceptional to start, with low accuracy, 2 health, and only 1 damage. 1 Block for his save is similarly unimpressive, but once inspired he gains an attack die and an additional save die. If you are dubbing Nagz things have probably gone wrong somewhere, but in a world where he has all the questin’ bonuses stacked he becomes a fighter who looks more like a wounded stormcast than a humble grot, so its a tricky tightrope to walk between Dubbing your stronger fighters to get them amped, or bringing your weaker fighters up to the same solid level.
Our final fighter, Burk, is identical to Nagz in every way except for his name, and all the same applies.
Conclusion
Overall, this warband has some very flavorful mechanics, but I’m not convinced the raw stats are quite there, as you only Dub once per battle round, but almost every fighter feels like in some way the questin’ bonuses were “priced in”. With most of the quests only rewarding inspirations in addition to the stat bonus for your Dubbed fighter, the warscroll feels like it doesn’t actually add as much power to your fighter cards as other warbands have natively. Only time will tell, but I do suspect that this warband will take many reps to master.
