Intro
While you certainly may have read these in any order, the last article I’ve written for this cycle is the review for Farstriders 2.0. Again, it’s great to see an old warband getting some love in the form of a revamp, although I have to admit I am less excited for these than I was for SG, simply because I am not the biggest Stormcast fan. Still, very happy to see some renewed usage for some older models and hopefully the changes made will bring them more in line with the current warband design like I think they will do for the skellies (although I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it in this case). Short and sweet, let’s hop into the cards!
Fighters
Starting with the leader, we do have a couple of changes to Farstrider himself. The first is a pretty minor buff to his uninspired side, giving his Range 3 attack action stagger, but only on a critical hit. Slight buff, but not one that will come into play very often. Also pretty minor, but they’ve actually printed the hunter keyword on all the cards! More notably, they have revamped the warband’s inspiration condition. Rather than having to be in enemy territory at the end of the round, they now only need to make two or more attack actions with different names in the same phase. This is huge, as it not only allows them to inspire during the action phase, but also means they no longer have to rush into enemy territory to unlock their inspired profiles. This allows you to fundamentally change your playstyle, if desired, and potentially hang back a bit more to avoid getting shredded as you charge in. However, it is worth noting that it may make it more difficult to inspire multiple fighters in the same round, but I think the payoff is worth it. When inspired, they’ve sensibly melded his two ranged profiles into one “Bolts and Talons” attack, keeping it 4R/3S/1D, but with the blinding keyword, which retains its original grievous while also bringing in the stagger ability from the uninspired side. Again, another slight buff, but nothing crazy. The greater boon on the inspired side is that his Range 1 profile is now 3H instead of 2, which is a very significant accuracy boost. This is more in line with some of the accuracy creep we’ve experienced in recent releases, so definitely a good change. Overall, you’ve got some nice buffs here, but the inspiration change feels like the biggest get for the warband as a whole.
Swiftblade has the exact same changes on his uninspired side as Farstrider (keywords added, stagger on critical at Range 3, inspiration condition). Otherwise, he is the exact same on his uninspired side as he once was, with the exception that the stagger on crit stays for his Range 3. Not much to look at here.
Eagle-Eye got a slightly different treatment, as his Range 3 just has the stagger keyword, crit or no. I guess this is to highlight his marksmanship? Would’ve been nice to seem them all just get stagger on their pistols, but a buff is a buff, so they’ll take what they can get. Like Swiftblade, his inspired side is unchanged outside of the stagger at Range 3.
Some nice minor tweaks, but overall the inspiration, as I mentioned, is the greatest improvement here. It is now far less clunky and the removal of the positional aspect allows you to construct much more flexible gameplans. I like the changes they’ve made here.
Objectives
Bolts of Azyr is our first objective and seems to be the updated version of [
Behead the Beast], scoring for 1 glory in the end phase if the enemy leader is out of action. Unless you’re Clawpack, I don’t love the idea of having to kill the leader to score, as it is pretty variably difficult from one matchup to another. It might be relatively easy vs. Stalkers, but if you run into something like Mollog or Hrothgorn it suddenly becomes much more difficult. It is nice that they updated the wording so that you don’t have to complete the task in a particular phase, but I’m still no taking this one.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1
Flash of Light is basically in-faction [
Find a Path]. This is not bad, by any means, but, as I mentioned in my discussion of the inspiration condition, I think you now want to lean less on running into enemy territory and there are some better end phases to synergize with a more passive playstyle for them. Still, this one’s not terrible if you’re looking to play a bit more aggro.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2
Outside of updating to the modern objective structure, Lightning Advance is unchanged. I feel like maybe they should’ve made it 2 glory. If you’re putting your fighters at risk like this, there at least should be some payoff.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2
Master of the Hunt is effectively the surge version of their inspiration condition, with the exception that the attacks need to actually succeed (and the inspire doesn’t technically require different Range). Still, this is going to require at least 2 activations to score (outside of power cards) and it doesn’t have the fallback condition for bad dice that something like [
Due Process] has. I feel like it still would’ve been just ok if they didn’t give it a dual condition and had it be “a friendly fighter makes their second or subsequent successful attack in the phase.”
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Prime Objective is another 1-glory end phase for holding the highest-valued objective in enemy territory. Soooo, what happens when that objective is all the way in the back of a wall of skeletons? I’m not sure why they didn’t just write this as “your warband holds one or more objectives in enemy territory.” That’s a perfectly reasonable 1-glory card that you still wouldn’t always take (and in fact, a few warbands do have such a card in their Rivals deck). As written, there’s just too much luck involved for not enough payoff.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1
Ranger Strike actually took a bit of a nerf due to updating its wording to the modern structure. Previously, you could score as soon as you drew it if the condition had already been met earlier in the round, but now you have to proc it off a kill. I would rather they have edited this to be a [
Brought to Bay] reprint so you could score it for taking out an enemy fighter in enemy territory. It was already not a good kill surge and now it is even worse.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1
Stormforged Vanguard is our next 1-glory surge, scoring for each friendly fighter being in enemy territory and each having one or more Move/Charge tokens. Later in the game, I could certainly see this being trivial, but it is sometimes difficult to get everyone in for the first round, especially given a couple of your fighters only have Move characteristics of 3. Furthermore, this leans more into the old inspiration condition rather than the new one. I find it a bit odd they elected to change the inspiration condition while still so heavily incentivizing the enemy territory stuff like this. At least this one is reasonably doable though, it’s worth considering.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Swift Punishment is effectively [
Intervention], but opened up a bit more to let Swiftblade help with the score. Again, I would’ve liked to see this made a bit more playable by putting it more on-par with modern kill surges. Maybe instead of being on an objective token, within 1 hex like with [
Lethal Defences] would’ve been more palatable.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1
Swift Work scores 2 glory in the end phase if the number of enemy fighters out of action is greater than the round number. If you can pull this off in Round 1, the upside is definitely there, as warbands not named Ephilim’s Pandaemonium have typically only scored 1 glory in the end phase for having two or more enemy fighters out of action. Following that, three or more OOA at the end of the second round is reasonable for 2 glory, a la [
Nagash’s Will], you just really don’t want to be digging this out in Round 3, as 4 fighters OOA is either impossible vs. 3-man teams, [
Annihilation] vs. 4-fighter warbands, or still really difficult in general for 2 glory.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1
In case you hadn’t seen enough kill surges yet, The Judgement of Sigmar is another, this time for taking an enemy fighter out of action with a Range 3+ attack action. As far as this set is concerned, this is probably the best of the kill surges. You’ll be making plenty of these attacks anyway, I think it’s fine. I would say you are probably going to need to burn an R slot on [
Fighter’s Ferocity] though to maximize your ranged damage output.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Finally, a card you’re going to always take in Veteran Marksman. [
Headshot] reprints for such range-heavy warbands are always pretty solid, although they can sometimes clog up your hand a bit if your dice are hurting you. Still, not requiring a kill is a nice change of pace from most of the rest of your surges.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Our final objective is Without Equal, which is a nice little inverted [
Path to Victory] for holding an objective if two or more enemy fighters are out of action. I think this one is also pretty good and actually one of the few objectives in the deck that works more with the change to the inspiration condition. While much of the design seems to be an artifact of the old inspiration for going into enemy territory, this one actually works with the more flex style of build I think you’d want to be pursuing in constructed formats. While I think you’ll need to pull in mostly universals for the objective support, this is probably one that you can use as a cornerstone to your build.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Our Favorites
- Mark: Without Equal
- Aman: Veteran Marksman
- Zach: Master of the Hunt
Gambits
Aetheric Paths is a lesser version of [
Beast Trail] for teleporting your fighters from one edge hex to another. While the new charge rule can potentially allow you to make some use of this card, eating the token is a bit punishing. It could maybe work on a Tooth and Claw build with savage-related objectives, as well as things like Stormforged Vanguard, so you might still consider it, I just think I’d generally rather take some push tech instead.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Ceaseless Volley is a nice re-do of [
Steady Volley] as a [
Sidestep]+. It’s actually been buffed a bit as you can use it as push even if you don’t plan on making an attack with the fighter, plus the extra attack die extends to any Range 3+ attack you use, not just the boltstorm pistols. Seems like a pretty nice card here, you’re likely taking it in most decks.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3
Fearsome Roar is unchanged and it’s fine. I feel like it’s a big missed opportunity to also just turn this card into [
Hypnotic Buzz] like they did with Terrifying Screams. It would’ve made for some nice parallel design while actually improving the usability of the card. Pushing only while adjacent is fairly limiting, I’d rather just take a card like No Safe Ground instead.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Lightning Blow is also a copy/paste, but it’s still pretty good! Having no range limit on a +1 damage gambit is pretty rare, so it’s nice to enable some of your shooting as well (of course, if you actually hit).
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Merciless Assault allows you to capitalize on your successful Range 1 attack by leading into a Range 3+ attack as well. Out of sequence attacks are generally quite powerful and this one is probably no exception, especially since this can actually let you inspired in just one activation step. Needing to be a successful attack is a bit tough when they easily could’ve let you do this even if you missed, but still a very good card.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Rangers, Advance is unchanged as well, so it’s still great! Nothing bad to say about a double [Sidestep].
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 3
Rapid Volley got a slight buff in that it works for all Range 3+ attacks, not just the pistols. I just talked about how good making out-of-sequence attacks was, but being able to do it off multiple power cards is great! Sadly, it doesn’t really help you inspire (unless you have a Range 3+ attack action upgrade down), but still a great card. Imagine an activation where you chain a successful Range 1 attack into Merciless Assault into Rapid Volley!
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 3
Raptor Strike is also a reprint (bit of a theme) and is also still great! 4-hex ping with very little in the way of restriction is fantastic and should still be finding its way into every deck. There is, of course, still the risk you pull it after Farstrider dies, but the benefit still outweighs the risk.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Retribution is yet another reprint that still retains great value by letting you fire back at your opponent after they whack you. While you obviously need to survive the attack, having so many ways to throw out and even string together out-of-sequence attacks is really nice synergy with the inspire condition and also gives you your best shot at killing lots of fighters. You obviously would prefer to have this one in your opening hand, if possible, as the odds you will survive a hit continue to decrease as the game moves into the later rounds.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1
With yet another unchanged gambit to round us out, Warning Cry gives the chosen fighter a guard token. Could work with some of the Order GA cards like [
Ordered Defence] and [
Shaken, Yet Unmoved], as well as things like [
Places of Power] or [
Cryptic Clues], but guard itself is a bit of a low power output gambit for a warband that all defends on shields.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3
Our Favorites
- Mark: Merciless Assault
- Aman: Ceaseless Volley
- Zach: Merciless Assault
Upgrades
The first upgrade is Aetheric Step, which has been modernized to the flying trait rather than just being able to move through other fighters. While they were at it, I think it would’ve been nice to also move the fighter restriction to at least make it a bit more playable, but realistically the effect is not enough to merit an upgrade slot anyway. You also don’t really need the flying as much anymore now that you don’t need to force your way into enemy territory to inspire.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2
Covering Fire got a pretty nice buff with an increase of the support bubble to 3 hexes instead of only adjacent. This should make the effect pretty consistent to access and it’s actually a pretty solid little defensive buff once you start inspiring guys, especially against warbands that can pack a lot of cleave. There’s even an angle here to take cards like [
Brigade Strength] and [
Shadow Seeker] with [
Loyal Allies], especially if you are considering a more passive build anyway. Not a hugely powerful card, and it’s useless once you’re down to your last fighter, but it’s at least not a waste of a slot anymore.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Crackling Blade is a new upgrade to gain grievous and stagger on your Range 1 attacks. This actually has some very nice synergy with Merciless Assault to set up a more dependable shot on the follow. While it’s no [Fighter’s Ferocity], it’s about as good of a grievous upgrade as you’ll typically see in a Rivals deck, and it’s good enough it’ll probably make your Nemesis decks.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Gosh darn it GW, what happened to the new +Range design space?! Farsighted gives you +1 Range on your Range 3+ attacks and that’s all. While I have a new appreciation for Range 4 after playing Ephilim’s Pandaemonium for a bit, I’ve mentioned a few times that range alone is not enough to warrant an upgrade slot. Could be funny to make Farstrider Range 5, but at least something like +Range and cleave might’ve been mildly intriguing. If, for whatever reason, you still wanted to take it, it will do what you want, I just don’t see how you can clear out a slot just for this.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3
Could we not have just combined Hail of Bolts and Farsighted into one upgrade? Especially since they nuked [
Furious Blow], which would actually be nice to have kept. Also, with a name like that I was hoping for something like [
Rapid Reload], not this. Imagine having actually burned a slot on this and then fighting against one of the many warbands that only defends on shields anyway…
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1
Incredible Stamina allows you to, once per round, remove a Move or Stagger token from the equipped fighter before their activation. Where was this design in the rest of the deck? This is a cool card! The pre-activation reaction step is a relatively unexplored design space so far, so it’s cool to see something in that sphere. This strikes me as [
Potion of Grace]+ and can still offer a nice little defensive buff, if needed, especially against warbands like Clawpack that might really need that Stagger token to stick. While you might not always want to take an activation just to move, this does open up some Move+Charge shenanigans like we see with Elathain’s Soulraid and can negate a dangerous poison gambit like [
Ill-prepared]. I like this design a lot, even if the projected power output is not necessarily the highest.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Lone Warrior is back with technically a small buff. However, with the improvement to Covering Fire, it just feels weirdly anti-synergistic and like it could easily have been swapped out to open up room for a new card or just have always counted as having an additional supporting fighter to maintain better synergy.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1
Overcharged Boltstorm Pistol is unchanged, and it certainly can make for a decent ranged accuracy upgrade. You do have to choose between this and the potential extra damage when you’re shooting with Farstrider, but there are enough Range 3-enabling tools in the deck that it may be worth trying it out.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Swift Stride is also the same, but +2 Move is still quite good for a generally slow warband. You don’t need it quite as much given the changes to the inspiration condition, but it’s a decent tool to have in the kit, especially when you really want to make that Range 1 attack.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3
Finally, we have Watchful Advance, which allows you to take a guard token as a reaction after any activation in which you made a move action. This one’s pretty neat for holding your positioning and I like the potential redundancy with Incredible Stamina as ways to remove stagger. Great synergy with holding feature tokens/hazard hexes/etc. as well.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3
Our Favorites
- Mark: Watchful Advance
- Aman: Incredible Stamina
- Zach: Watchful Advance
Conclusion
I actually did not read the Farstriders cards until after I had written my SG article, but I have to say that I am pretty disappointed in what we got here. You may have noticed I didn’t write nearly as much here and I want to stress that this was not a result of running up against a deadline, there simply wasn’t as much to discuss. There are far fewer changes to this warband than what we saw with the skellies and I feel like it’s not done nearly so much for them competitively. Again, if I seemed harsh at times throughout this article, it’s only because we have seen the development team push out so many really cool and interesting designs and I, perhaps unfairly, always want for the new stuff to live up to that standard.
The inspiration change is the most important aspect of the revamp, but I feel like the Rivals deck was not really updated to reflect that, as it is still very much designed around entering enemy territory. The warband’s gambits are still very good, so you could argue not much change was really needed there, but they are still going to have to dip heavily into the universal pool for objectives and upgrades, even in constructed formats. Again, maybe it is unfair of me to complain since it is something of a blessing we are getting updates to old warbands anyway, but it is clear the skellies got significantly more love than the Stormcast in this set. Also, by the same token, even if the Starter set isn’t designed for the experienced player, the expectation is obviously that these are the new versions of the warbands that exist in the game, so it seems likely that a lot of us would want to pick this up, but we’re really not getting value out of this new version of the warband given how similar it is to the old. It’s just some weird conflicting messaging to go from “we don’t plan to redo old warbands” to redoing SG in such a phenomenal fashion and then hanging Farstriders out to dry. While I’m very glad that newer players will have access to the warband now, I definitely feel for those of you who were hoping they would get the same treatment.
Sorry to end on a bit of a negative note, but with all the new stuff out this weekend I hope that you’ve at least got a few things to be excited about, I know I do! As always, thanks for reading and best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory.
