Intro
Well, hello there and welcome to Determined … uhhh … I mean Path to Glory! Before I get started with this article, I just wanted to introduce myself to the Path to Glory audience. My name is Mark (online moniker Baconborne), formerly of the Determined Effort blog for Warhammer Underworlds. Aman has graciously invited me to cover the written content portion of Path to Glory and I’m excited for the opportunity! If you’re familiar with my work, you’ll know that I like to write very in-depth articles. This, I think, is good in that I try to cover all aspects of a card or fighter or whatever I’m talking about, but of course it can mean a lot of reading! I won’t be offended if you want to skip around in my articles instead of scrolling top-to-bottom, but I certainly intend to keep up my long-form content here at PtG.
For my first article on the blog, we’ve got my review of Domitan’s Stormcoven! I don’t normally like Stormcast all that much from an aesthetic perspective, but I have to say I enjoy these quite a bit. My favorite model is probably Leona, but they did a very nice job with all 3 sculpts, in my opinion. They are also very interesting mechanically, with a lot of moving parts to consider in terms of inspiration and proximity to enemy fighters. I think they did just enough to make them new and distinct from Stormsire’s Cursebreakers, which is always good to see on these type of “redo” warbands. Anyway, enough fluff, let’s start the discussion!
Fighters
While I normally start with the leader and work my way down, in this case, it definitely makes more sense to start with the inspiration condition. While each fighter will inspire if the other two are out of action, the main inspiration condition of the warband is their Harness the Aether reaction. The development team very elegantly crafted a rotating inspiration system as these wizards channel the aether between them to power up any given individual. As such, there is no leader when the warband is uninspired. Instead, the leader is whichever one happens to be inspired at the time. Despite the headache this will likely cause for me as a Clawpack player, I love this design and theme. I will note that fighters do not un-inspire when they are taken out of action, so you should still be able to capitalize on “enemy leader is out of action synergies” by killing an inspired member of the warband. In any case, the numerous interactions of leader-centric cards such as Commanding Stride makes this warband very interesting and should create even more dynamic play opportunities in games where those interactions are relevant. Since you only have 3 fighters, the historic play has been to draw a power card in your first activation. However, what you could do instead is simply put a fighter on guard (or attack, if there is someone in range), then choose to inspire another. That way, you’ll get inspired activations out of all 3 fighters in the first round (assuming they don’t die before they can activate). As cool as this concept is, I do worry that the warband will have a bit of that GSP-type of effect where you rarely need to worry about what their offensive base stats are (once the first activation has passed, in this case). This is not to say that I think they’ll be so broken as pre-nerf GSP were, but more that I feel it’s not ideal design to have fighters who never really need to use their base stats before accessing some higher-powered version of themselves through inspiration or whatever mechanic. Still, the downside is that only one is ever inspired at the same time and you do have to telegraph your plans a bit when you cycle the inspiration. I suppose we’ll have to see how it plays on the table. In any case, now that we’ve covered the inspiration side of things, let’s talk about the individual fighter cards.
First up is Domitan, Eye of the Storm, who is a level 1 wizard when uninspired. His base physical profile is pretty standard for a Stormcast fighter at 3 Move, 1 Shield, 4 Wounds. He sports a 2R/2H/2D attack with his pokey stick, but what is more interesting is his spell attack, as it (among other fighters’ spell attacks in this core set) is the first instance of having a wizard’s attack action Dice characteristic be decoupled from their wizard level. All due respect to the guys at Critical Focus Channel (they make great content), everybody knows that we roll lightnings (L) and swirlies (S). With that in mind, the attack is 3R/2L/1D, which is about as accurate as you’re liable to see a spell attack. Definitely a nice way to spread some ping damage, if needed. When inspired, he becomes a level two wizard and gains an additional Wound. An additional damage gets added to his melee attack (as well as cleave), while his spell attack changes to again have the Dice characteristic match his wizard level (so you can profit from +wizard level modifiers) and also gains grievous and cleave. Furthermore, he gains a reaction to his inspiration that allows him to stagger each enemy fighter within two hexes, limited to once per round. If your positioning is good, you can potentially use this to set up some more accurate melee attacks in cases where you may not even need to charge. As a Clawpack enjoyer, I can say that Snyp is very jealous of the range on this. Overall, this is a lot to gain from such an easily controllable inspiration, but there is the obvious downside that these guys jump in and out of their inspired states throughout the match. Still, it seems like most of the activations this fighter makes will be done with his inspired side, making him a pretty potent offensive threat.
Next fighter up is Sarpon, the Cyclone, another level 1 wizard with a base physical profile of 3 Move, 1 Shield, and 4 Wounds. Compared to Domitan, he trades a little bit of accuracy on his spell attack (hits on swirlies instead of lightning) for a more accurate melee attack at 2R/3H/2D, which is about as accurate as an uninspired Range 2 fighter could hope for. This is deadly accurate for someone that doesn’t need to charge into adjacency to start swinging, I feel like nobody would’ve batted an eye if it were 2H, then inspiring to 3, but I suppose the accuracy is a fair tradeoff for only having 3 models. Given his uninspired accuracy, this seems like one of the ideal fighters to activate first in order to start inspiring your other two. However, upon his own inspiration, Sarpon jumps to a level 2 wizard and gains an additional Defence die. His melee attack also gains the Scouring keyword, which allows it to deal +1 Damage when adjacent. In this respect, the ability to either pump out a really accurate uninspired attack to get your inspiration chain going or wait a bit to activate for an accurate and high damage option will be something of a consideration in the early game. His spell attack also converts to using his wizard level while gaining grievous and ensnare. If that weren’t enough for you, he also gets a post-inspiration reaction for a free Sidestep to be used on either of your other two fighters. You can again only use this once per round, but free pushes are always a powerful effect! Both he and Domitan are so potent offensively that you have some flexibility to beef up either of them and clean up a lot of kills. You can even use Sarpon’s push to later set up a stagger when you go to act with Domitan. These two should work very nicely together.
The third and final fighter in the warband is Leona Stratosi, who seems to be more of the support piece in the warband rather than primary damage-dealer. On an aesthetic point, I think she is my favorite model in the warband. The floating is nicely done and she gives me some White Vision vibes, I dig it. Looking at stats, she is also a level 1 wizard with a base physical profile of 4 Move, 1 Shield, 4 Wounds, as well as the flying keyword, so a bit more mobile than the other two. The flying is quite nice for keeping her safely behind a blocked hex at the beginning of the match only to swoop out later. Her attack profiles are pretty basic to compensate for her increased speed, sporting a 2R/2H/2D attack with her bident, as well as a 3R/2S/1D spell attack. Like the others, she becomes a level 2 wizard on inspiring and gains some other goodies as well. Her offensive output doesn’t improve much, as she only gains one additional point of damage on her spell attack (and its accuracy now depends on her wizard level), but she does go up to that coveted 2-Shield defence. She also presents an interesting wrinkle in the inspiration cycle with her Rushing Gales ability, which grants all of your fighters +1 Move and the flying keyword. This means that, if you need the mobility, you may need to sacrifice the power output from Domitan and Sarpon to achieve it. This will likely come into play most frequently in the first round against more passive warbands, but in general I think their threat range is high enough you’re often better off just swinging the inspiration around to whichever fighter you want to activate next anyway. Still, she seems like a good candidate for your initial inspiration, as she gives you the most flexibility with regard to what you could potentially do in your subsequent activation.
Based on pure stats and abilities, this does strike me as one of the stronger 3-man SCE warbands they’ve printed, but I think their power level is still reasonable. A bit of power creep on old designs is to be expected, but you can see the built-in risk-reward considerations involved with the inspire mechanic. It should hopefully keep the warband’s options flexible without resulting in any particular mode or play sequence feeling overtuned.
Warband Rivals Deck
New Grading System!
With the swap to a new blog, I felt like this was a good time to try out a new grading system following some feedback I received after my BBA review. For this release cycle, I am breaking the faction cards into two groupings: “power ceiling” and “consistency” (universal cards will also have a “universality” criterion, once I get into those decks). The nominal criteria for each of these are listed below. I am still looking at things from primarily a Championship lens, so that aspect of the exercise is not changing. My hope is that this provides sufficient resolution on my feelings for each card while removing some of the nitpickiness of precise letter grades. I also thought it seemed a reasonable breakdown considering the new salvage rule, as it allows me to contrast the “pop-off” potential of some cards with how likely they are to achieve that potential. It will hopefully also highlight instances where powerful, yet inconsistent effects can leverage the salvage rule to become more worthy of deck inclusion. Let me know if you like the new rating system, if you prefer the old, or if you would prefer I just talked about cards instead of trying to assign them grades. I’m sure this system could use some further refinement!
Power Ceiling – Power output when drawn and/or played at the opportune moment(s) of a game
- 1 = Effect of card is minimal. Most other cards will provide more value in the same game state.
- 2 = Effect of card is average. Will provide decent utility, but it doesn’t do quite as much as the top dogs.
- 3 = Effect of card is significantly above average or even overpowered. Game state is significantly altered by its effect.
Consistency – Frequency with which a card is expected to provide value at or near its power ceiling
- 1 = Power level is highly dependent on game state and draw sequencing. Card will work infrequently and/or has a wide variety of expected outcomes.
- 2 = Power level is somewhat dependent on game state and draw sequencing. Card has a narrower range of expected outcomes, but is not a guarantee.
- 3 = Power level is relatively independent of game state and draw sequencing. Card will almost always work as desired.
Universality – General appeal and ubiquity (does not apply to Warband-specific cards)
- 1 = Card is situational and designed to be played only by very specific playstyles/warband choices (if any).
- 2 = Card could potentially find its way into any deck, but returns more value on a handful of playstyles/warband choices.
- 3 = Card value is relatively independent of playstyle or warband choice.
Objectives
Channel the Storm is a surge for the second or subsequent time a friendly fighter becomes inspired in a round. Right off the bat, if you’re remembering the days of passive Cursebreaker scoring, this card is definitely throwing up some red flags for you. In Round 1 this is basically just “start your second activation with 1 glory.” However, being a 3-model warband, there is certainly still some risk that you draw this late and no longer have the ability to cycle around inspirations due to having too many fighters out of action. Also, there could potentially be situations where you don’t want to move the inspiration (for example, if Domitan is inspired and has 4 Wound counters). Still, I think that there will usually not be much opportunity for your opponent to provide counterplay here. I can’t max out the consistency score because there will technically be some draw sequencing issues here, but this strikes me as one of the better faction surges out there and I expect this to be a staple card for the warband. Going further, if the warband turns out to be really strong, a restriction on this certainly wouldn’t be out of the question.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Conduit of the Heavens is a whopping 2-glory surge for casting your 4th or subsequent spell in the same round. Man, they are definitely trying to incentivize that passive spellcasting glory again, this is a bit spooky. Given the fact that gambit spells exist, technically the only way for your opponent to ensure they can stop you is to kill all 3 of your fighters. That being said, it also requires some heavy spellcasting commitment for your power deck. You might not be able to fit all of your staple cards if you need to cram in as many gambit spells as you want to make this score consistently. In that respect, I think the 2-glory payoff is fair, but it does mean that a “properly-constructed” spell bomb deck should be able to score this pretty readily in the first two rounds of the game, barring some bad dice luck. Getting 2 glory off a single surge is a big deal, but you will definitely need to tech into it appropriately.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Eye of the Hurricane is a 2-glory end phase which requires you to make 4 or more different actions with a fighter in the round and have them be in no-one’s or enemy territory. While 2 glory is a nice payoff, I think it seems absurdly inefficient to score. You’d basically need to activate a single fighter 3 times. Some sample permutations include charge plus 2 other actions like guard and stun or barge plus guard and attack. This just seems like way too much to try and pull off, especially since you only have 3 fighters, you want to make the most out of all of those activations. It just feels too inefficient to me, and even dedicating yourself to trying to score it is dangerous because that fighter could easily be killed with this sequence of activations.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1
Fulminating Bulwark rewards you 1 glory in the end phase if you have two or more friendly fighters adjacent to each other and within 2 hexes of enemy territory. Very nice to have a simple positioning objective like this to score in the deck, although it is a bit telegraphed if your opponent sees you going to set it up. As long as you have sufficient push tech and/or anti-push tech like Darkwater Anchor, this should be pretty manageable, though is of course only the minimum reward. However, given that you only have 3 fighters, you can probably afford a bit lower of a glory ceiling than most warbands in your objective pool.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2
Heavenly Alignment is another casting surge for rolling 2 or more dice in the casting roll and each die showing a different symbol. The most important thing to note here is that the spell doesn’t not even have to successfully cast, much like Branching Fate. If you plan to roll more than 2 dice, this gets a tad harder, but on just 2, if I’ve done my math right, you have a 61% chance to roll 2 different faces. Looking at a warband that is going to be making a lot of casting attempts, only horrendously bad dice would likely screw you out of this. This style of objective that just happens while you are playing the game are always powerful. Sure, you still need to be in range (as needed) to cast spells, but assuming at least one of your inspired wizards can make these attempts, it will score sooner or later, emphasis on sooner.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Heavensent is another casting surge, although it requires a bit more commitment to it, as you score it for a successful cast by a friendly fighter holding an objective in no one’s or enemy territory. You can charge and zap to score this or, failing that, cast in the power step instead. The simplicity is there but there are enough wrinkles to prevent this from just being free glory. There is the positional requirement of course, but even more in depth than that is that you will need to manufacture this during board setup. If your opponent has some matchup knowledge, they should try to deny you these easy objective placements, much like we tend to see with people playing around Stealthy Advance in Daring Delvers. Making sure to occupy that mid-board token before the Stormcoven player can get to it will be a huge boon for a variety of their objectives, especially in Nemesis, where they are forced to lean more heavily on their faction cards.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Knights Triumphant is a 2-glory end phase for having two or more fighters make the Harness the Aether reaction and two or more fighters (not necessarily the same ones that made the reactions) in enemy or no one’s territory. This has major vibes of Worshipped in Battle from Gorechosen. The first condition, as long as you have two or more fighters alive, should be pretty easily fulfilled, but the second does require you to go up and engage, which is definitely a risk with the warband. Still, it is probably my preferred option if you are going to take any in this three-card miniseries of end phases.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Knights Victorious is a 2-glory end phase for holding one or more objectives in enemy territory and having taken one or more enemy fighters out of action in the previous phase. I don’t typically love the requirement to push forward into enemy territory with such a low-mobility, low-fighter count warband. Positioning is at a premium when you have so few fighters and you generally have to be pretty cautious with each of them to avoid getting blown away. While the 2-glory payoff is nice, I’m not sure this will necessarily synergize with your overall gameplan here, which I expect to be focused on playing a cagey early game and picking up some passive scores prior to trying to claim some heads. Obviously retains some more value in the limited deckbuilding formats, but I think my Championship decks are looking for more consistency and more positioning flexibility.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1
Knights-Arcanum finishes off the series as another 2-glory end phase for a friendly inspired fighter holding an objective in enemy territory. The synergy is definitely there with our previous entry to create an invading aggro type of build but I still don’t think these guys are really that well suited to charging into enemy territory. I’d rather leave both of these at home if I can to ensure I don’t have to walk into the meatgrinder against a warband like Exiled Dead.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1
Scouring Arcs is a kill surge scored immediately after taking an enemy fighter out of action with a spell. Given the wording, spell attacks and gambits can be used to score this, so there is definitely some flexibility here. While it’s not so simple as the basic “be [something], kill a fighter” like Savage Slaughter, it’s still plenty manageable, especially since the whole warband is able to cast spells. Even though the spell attack actions they have are generally low damage, the accuracy is pretty decent (especially on Domitan). It might be nice to pack a lot of ping damage to set up these kills, even if not all of that ping is in the form of spells. While your ideal scenario would probably be to not take any kill surges in a constructed deck, plenty of warbands are forced into taking worse options than this, it’s decent.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Tempest’s Fury is potentially very easy or very difficult. You score this surge after your warband’s third or subsequent move action in the round. If it’s the first round, should be pretty easy to make a move with all 3 fighters and be done with it. However, in rounds 2 and beyond I think this starts to get borderline unscoreable, as it is rare that moving twice with the same fighter (unless you have the ability to make multi-move actions like Exiled Dead or have a rule like Soulraid) is an efficient option. Swinging from trivial to near impossible makes this hard to rate, but it feels like one of the high-risk, high-reward options that I don’t want to take in my deck.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1
Thunderstruck is another one of those Wurmspat objectives masquerading in another warband, scoring you 1 glory in the end phase for 3 or more enemy fighters having one or more wound tokens and/or being out of action. With all the ping this warband has access to, this seems fairly solid to me. You might not want it in your opening hand, but even in that case I think you shouldn’t have all that much trouble scoring this. Pretty solid for a 1-glory card, I like it a lot. Its synergy with your overall gameplan should push it above most 1-glory end phases.
Power Ceiling: 2
Consistency: 3
Our favorites:
- Mark: Conduit of Heavens
- Aman: Heavensent
- Zach: Thunderstruck
Gambits
Our first gambit is Aura of Power, which is just a reprint of Sweep the Leg, allowing you to stagger an enemy fighter adjacent to one or more friendly fighters. Stagger is all well and good, but generally you’re just better off taking accuracy gambits like +1 Dice instead that don’t require some pre-condition to make use of. Even on Nemesis stagger Clawpack builds, the aforementioned Sweep the Leg doesn’t make the cut, I expect similarly low value here.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2
Azyrite Halo is a gambit spell cast on a swirly which applies -1 Dice to enemy fighters who make attacks adjacent to the caster for the rest of the round. We have seen this be a relatively powerful effect as an upgrade for cards like Aura of Shyish, but does it return enough value by only lasting for a round to merit inclusion in your deck? I don’t think so. You might be forced into taking this in Nemesis to support the 2-glory casting surge, and the added survivability is nice, but there are a lot of higher-powered universal gambits (even gambit spells, for that matter) which you could take instead. Situationally, I could see it being nice with one of your 2-Shield fighters as a deterrent into Range 1 aggro, but the combination of matchup dependency and total effect on the game state is a bit lower than I’d like, especially given that there will be some matchups against things like Profiteers or Wraithcreepers where it provides very little value.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1
Blaze of the Heavens is just Agonizing Bolt on steroids. At worst, it’s ping damage on a swirly for 3 hex range, but the ability to balloon as high as 5 hexes is just nutty. As with many of the warband’s casting-related cards, the fact that you have 3 wizards helps a ton, though having to actually succeed on the casting roll does mitigate its consistency. Casting on a swirly means there will be games where it doesn’t go off, but I think one swirly for one ping damage is about the going rate on gambit spells. I would probably look at you funny if you decided not to take this in every Stormcoven deck, super good card.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Celestial Blades is yet another gambit spell, this time casting on a single lightning. If successful, you get to re-roll one die in the attack roll for a chosen friendly fighter for the rest of the round (no Range requirement). Speaking of accuracy gambits, this is definitely more in line with what I’m looking for. This has shades of DKK’s Swampspill, trading a 90% cast rate (assuming you’re a level 2 wizard) for the ability to also boost up Range 3+ attacks. If you manage to pull of the minimum of making one attack after casting this, that’s already pretty decent accuracy value, but if you pull this off on multiple attacks, that starts to exceed the value of +1 Dice gambits that only last for 1 attack. Furthermore, the re-roll is great support for Heavenly Alignment, as it both provides an extra spell to cast and gives you a chance to make re-rolls while throwing off spell attack actions. I like this card quite a bit.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3
I love how many usable spells they packed into this Rivals deck! Howling Gales casts on a swirly to give you a pseudo-Call of Blood control tool. The difference here is that you are only pushing enemy fighters closer to each other, which I think is primarily a good thing. Is your opponent holding two objectives (in the same territory)? Simply yoink them off those tokens, smash them into each other and stagger them! While it’s not quite Howling Vortex, the effect will often be similarly devastating to your opponent’s gameplan if they are trying to pull of some positional scores. The stagger accuracy is just a nice bonus on top of that. Additionally, and this applies to all of your gambit spells, having multiple wizards improves the reliability of actually being able to use it. Love this card, it might be my favorite gambit in their deck.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
Welcome to the house of ping! Lightning Tether is a gambit spell reaction that casts on a single lightning after a fighter’s successful spell attack action to deal 1 additional damage to each fighter adjacent to the target. While this gives you a bit less control in terms of racking up multiple points of damage on an individual fighter, having the reaction window pop up after the drive back step means you do have quite a bit of control over who you plan to damage with this card. The AoE also is particularly disruptive against horde warbands like Exiled Dead, giving you the potential to pump out 2 or more damage in a single card. I feel like maybe this should’ve cast on a swirly instead, especially since the caster is very likely to be level 2 when making their attack, but I guess the situational aspects of the card were enough that they felt it should work more consistently in the cases where it applies. There is some potential to brick here if your opponent is very spread out or doesn’t have many fighters left, but the spike value is definitely there.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 1
Breaking the streak of gambit spells, Pass the Mantle allows you to immediately inspire a fighter (while uninspiring the others). This is a nice way to change up your gameplan on the fly if your previous inspiration ended up getting disrupted by a Freezing Venom or something. Additionally, you can use it to immediately trigger your inspiration reactions. Domitan can drop some staggers immediately before his activation or Sarpon can manufacture some pushes. Is it enough to make your 10? Probably not, but it is definitely a borderline consideration in your deck. Obviously, you have to watch out for those late-game draws where you only have 1 fighter left too.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2
More spells! Pillar of Lightning converts 1 feature token within 4 hexes of the caster into a lethal hex (for enemy fighters only) until the end of the round or until an enemy fighter takes damage from it. Unfortunately, I just don’t think this has the oomph that most ping cards have. Why wait for my ping (if it happens at all) when cards like Flame Wisps and Blaze of the Heavens can just do it on command? Sure, this is pretty consistent at casting on 1 lightning, but I’m not sure that’s enough to overcome the situational benefit of the card.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1
Positive Charge is the developers making a pun, I think? It gives +1 Dice to the first Range 1 or 2 attack action in the next activation, as well as +1 Move on a charge in that activation if the friendly fighter is inspired. I like the +1 Dice with a wrinkle. Doesn’t mean it will necessarily merit a slot, but for such a slow warband, I could see taking this mobility/accuracy combo, especially in Nemesis.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3
Thundershock is our final gambit spell (and gambit, for that matter), which casts on a swirly and allows you to deal 1 damage to an enemy fighter adjacent to the caster in addition to giving that fighter -1 Damage to their own attack actions for the rest of the round. I think this is actually pretty solid for a ping/survivability hybrid. The adjacency is a bit of a downer, but, in particular, dropping an enemy fighter from 2 Damage to 1 or 4 Damage to 3 can be a big boost to the survival potential of the warband. Casting on swirly for how little range it has is probably the biggest downside, but I think it’s fair to compensate with an additional bonus besides the ping. It’s not quite as powerful as your standard ping gambit like Blaze of the Heavens, but with the spellcasting synergy, this seems pretty solid.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Our favorites:
- Mark: Howling Gales
- Aman: Celestial Blades
- Zach: Thundershock
Upgrades
Blades of Azyr is definitely the kind of design space I want to see for +Range upgrades. This converts your Range 2 attacks to Range 3 and grants them stagger. This is insanely good for this warband since they all have base 2R attacks that do at least 2 Damage. Given how hard it is to find Range 2 accuracy these days, I’d say there’s relatively low downside to taking this outside of maybe not being able to profit quite as much from Great Strength. It also leans into the cagier spell bomb style I think this warband wants to benefit from. This card strikes me as being quite good, I think it fits in just about any deck and can allow you to really pop off from distance.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 3
Charged Weapons grants your Range 1 and 2 attack actions grievous if your fighter has one or more spells in the round. The obvious grievous bar is Fighter’s Ferocity, but that is now restricted, which does open the door a bit for lesser cards that grant the bonus. While I do feel like you are going to want to cast a lot of spells with this warband, I don’t love the conditional setup required to activate the bonus, especially if it’s not going to extend to your Range 3+. There are at least two better +Damage options in Great Strength and Gloryseeker, but I think it’s probably even worth springing for Fighter’s Ferocity as a restricted card before turning to this one due to its extension to your Range 3+ attacks. It’s fine, but it definitely doesn’t make a Championship build. I do think you probably have to take it in Nemesis because damage is so hard to come by in the format, but it’s generally a sub-optimal choice for what it does.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Electrified Grasp is a 1R/*S/1D spell attack action with cleave, ensnare, and stagger. While all of those keywords are very cute and make for a fairly reliable attack, we’re really stopping at 1 Damage? If I’m risking getting in this close with this warband, I need to at least be spitting out 2 Damage on the back end. Channeled Force is generally about as accurate (sometimes more, sometimes less) and does 2 Damage, plus gives you the added bonus of not being able to take backlash. In either case, you might as well just use your base Range 2 attacks instead if you want to fight in melee to give yourself a bit buffer room.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 2
Following up with a regular attack action upgrade, we have Electrokinesis, which is restricted to Domitan. It’s a 3R/3S/1D attack with knockback 2 that also has a reaction to stagger each enemy fighter within 1 hex of the target after the driveback step. While I understand the stagger accuracy is nice for them since there’s not a lot of Range 2/3 accuracy in the game, it’s a bit weird that they have several stagger abilities without any specific objective support for the mechanic. In this case, we again run into the issue of whether or not this is better than their base attack actions and the answer just has to be no for me. The secondary effects are cute, but the pure damage potential from their on-card melee attack action profiles, along with the spellcasting synergy of their on-card spell attack actions, is enough to outweigh the meager benefits of this card. Stack that on top of the fighter restriction and oof.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 1
Next up we have a very intriguing card in Herald of the Storm. This card grants you +1 Move, but the greater benefit is in the reaction, which can allow you to convert a Charge token into a Move token in an activation after you make a successful spell attack action. The warband’s spells are decent, but I do think that their Range 2 profiles are generally the more attractive options to be pursuing. If you want to focus heavily on spellcasting and lean into activating a single fighter multiple times rather than passing that inspiration around, you could potentially take this card, but you can also just abuse the new charge rule to keep activating your charged fighter anyway. Maybe this is really just built around trying to score Eye of the Hurricane or Tempest’s Fury, but needing to pay for the upgrade and meet a not-so-guaranteed condition to make use of it is a bit too much for the upside it provides.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 1
Lightning Lash allows you to push an enemy fighter after having cast any spell that dealt them damage. With all of the gambit spell pings this warband can take, on top of the spell attack actions they have access to, this is another nice control tool for the warband. It seems especially nice toward the end of the round vs. HO warbands. You might not be in a position to kill the holding fighters with the ping, but dislodging them from an objective with the push can still be huge for the end phase. You can also treat this as a sort of knockback effect on your spell attack actions. Still, there will be a lot of scenarios where you struggle to make use of this if you fail your casts or happen to kill your targets with your spell anyway. It’s definitely in that borderline inclusion level, maybe more attractive in Nemesis for disruption potential.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 2
Master of Ancient Lore grants the equipped fighter a reaction to draw a power after your opponent plays one or allows you to Draw 2 if that power card was a gambit spell. While you can only use the effect a maximum of one time per round, but that’s still some pretty good odds at value. I think the minimum you would expect to get out of this card (if you are able to draw and play it) is probably drawing a card once, and that’s for the situation where you don’t have it until the 3rd round. However, if you really strike gold, you pull it round 1 against an opposing spellcasting deck and draw as many as six cards throughout the course of the match. What is your opponent going to do, just not play any power cards ever? At best, they can really only control when you get the card(s), like an even more difficult to stop version of Duel of Wits. Draw effects are always good, but this one has the added bonus of screwing with your opponent’s head too, especially if you are facing off against other spellcasters. Magic is going to be a popular playstyle now, so the boom potential is pretty high.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 2
The Crown of Storms gives you a re-roll on all of the equipped fighter’s casting rolls. In some ways, this is even better than an extra wizard level, as the re-roll can help save you from backlash, as well as manipulate the result for cards like Heavenly Alignment. It’s a great accuracy buff while also increasing the reliability of your gambit spells, what’s not to like? Definitely one of the better cards in the set and an easy take in any Stormcoven build.
Power Ceiling: 3, Consistency: 3
The Liber Fulminus grants +1 range to all of the equipped fighter’s Range 2+ spell attack actions. I think I have talked about range-increasing upgrades before, but in case I haven’t, my general feeling is that these cards need to provide range plus some other small bonus. Something like +1 Range and line of sight through blocked hexes would make these upgrades a lot more attractive, especially since you are, by default, competing with all the good damage, accuracy, and defensive upgrades in the game. I do like the design space and I think it’s relatively unexplored, so it’s nice to see abilities aimed at increasing range, this one just isn’t going to make the cut for me like Blades of Azyr does.
Power Ceiling: 1, Consistency: 3
Our final card here is Scrolls of the Spell-Seeker, which reminds me a lot of the Vortex Staff effect. However, in this case, instead of modifying your casting roll, it modifies the casting requirements from swirlies to lightnings. This is a very nice consistency bonus for anything that casts on swirlies (Blaze of the Heavens, for example) and the existence of the card can definitely unlock the entire spell pool for this warband. However, I don’t think that a spell being 1 swirly vs. 1 lightning is enough of a barrier for me to include or not include it. Unless we start talking about needing two successes, casting difficulty is a far less significant factor than the power of the actual gambit spell for me. In that respect, I think this just bolsters the value of those cards I already plan to take which cast on swirly rather than meaningfully changing the deckbuilding process. That being said, since this works for attack actions too, it doubles as an accuracy upgrade, effectively granting support on either of Sarpon or Leona’s on-card spell attack actions. Leona popping out a 3R/2L/2D spell attack when inspired is very solid. I don’t think it’s likely to be the strongest upgrade in the set, but it’s a nice tool and one I think you’d like to take in most Stormcoven decks.
Power Ceiling: 2, Consistency: 3
Our favorites:
- Mark: Blades of Azyr
- Aman: Lightning Lash
- Zach: The Crown of Storms
Conclusions
We haven’t had a magic-focused warband in a while and this one certainly does not disappoint. The amount of spellcasting synergy here, combined with some powerful in-faction tools, should certainly leave this warband in a meta-relevant spot. This is especially true given some of the control tools they’ve given the warband to play a bit counter-meta themselves. The inherent weakness of these 3 fighter warbands will always be what happens if you start shedding fighters quickly, but I think, in combination with the universal pool, you can build a deck capable of putting out some serious passive scoring to mitigate their relative fragility. Their surges are particularly incredible, with several pretty much rewarding you just for playing the game. End phases might be a bit awkward, especially in Nemesis where you will likely be forced into running the “Knights” series of objectives, but that’s the only real weakness I see in the deck. Their power cards should definitely be considered above average and they have just about all the casting support you could hope for outside of an innate lightning upgrade. While I’m excited to see magic back in such a powerful way, this warband will definitely be able to push the archetype up to, or at least close to, its max. Now we just wait and see if that max still feels like a healthy spot in the meta, we’ll have to keep an eye on how it develops. Thanks for reading to this point if you made it all the way through, and I hope to see you again for the rest of articles this review cycle!
Best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory!
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Thank you to Games Workshop for providing us with the free preview copy. If you’d like to read the new Wyrdhollow rules, the PTG team has uploaded them here.
If you think this warband would make an excellent addition to your collection, be sure to head on down to your local Warhammer Store or FLGS to order yourself a copy of the Wyrdhollow box set. If you prefer to shop online, check them out here this Saturday (later today at time of posting).
