Welcome back to Path to Glory for yet another warband review! Today we’ll be covering one of the 13 free launch downloads for organized play: Spiteclaw’s Swarm. It’s no secret that I (and several of my co-hosts) are huge fans of the OG Skaven warband, so we’re very glad they’ve made the journey to the second edition. Given they were just redone for Rivals of the Mirrored City, I think there would’ve been riots if they didn’t get some form of a rules update, critically without having to buy new models and/or cards. Interestingly, GW has again branded them as a Strike warband, which is largely consistent with their RotMC iteration. While I enjoyed them more in a Flex capacity from their original construction, I am curious to see if this designation holds once we get into their mechanics. Let’s dive (scurry?) in!
Warscroll
Inspire
While terminology has changed from “choose” to “pick,” it’s good to see the old inspire condition for the warband coming back, as each fighter inspires immediately after resolving a ploy that picked them. While I haven’t noticed any ploys yet which pick fighters and resolve their effects at a later time (except for one that inspires you, then uninspires you anyway), that will be something to keep an eye on. In any case, this inspire is still one of the best and most controllable in the entire game, especially given that it also works if your opponent picked them. While this obviously incentivizes taking cards like Confusion (great card anyway) that can pick more than one fighter, even just making any “pick” ploy add the text “and inspire that fighter” always feels great.
Swarm
Another ability that should look pretty familiar, Swarm is a core ability allows your leader to raise a slain minion onto any starting hex. Note that they forgot to print the minion runemark onto them, but we have to presume the minions are the same as ever (everyone but Krrk and Skritch). While we’ve yet to see any ability which allows you to move treasure tokens yet (so no resurrecting directly onto them), it’s very nice to see them homogenizing the “raise” terminology. While you’ll no longer be able to keep bringing back little torpedoes since your upgrades break when you are slain, the 0 Bounty for raised fighters makes them a lot more interesting in terms of positional scoring pieces. You’ll create a lot of bad choices for your opponent by sitting on tokens with raised rats. If they continue slaying them to deny your objectives, they’re not collecting more Bounty, but if they leave you alone, you get to start cycling through your objectives. Additionally, being able to raise in either player’s territory will continue to allow you to more effectively contest tokens for cards like Slow Advance than most warbands. With the updated raise rules, I am hopeful we’ll see this ability shift the warband back towards the potent Flex gameplay we’ve seen in the past.
Scheming Pack
For an extra little bump of damage, each of your schemers (Skritch and Krrk) gets access to critical grievous if the target is flanked or surrounded. Note that this not only means that they can have a supporting fighter from the warband, but also that cards like Hidden Aid will work for this ability, which makes it a bit more flexible. Given that the warband lacks access to flat 3 Damage, even when inspired, I think this will be pretty decent, especially given that both schemers have 3 Dice on their inspired attack profiles. Sadly, it just won’t be able to stack with cards like Great Strength, so pushing past 3 Damage won’t be happening often. One final note is that this also works with weapon upgrades, which is especially intriguing given that the ability is not restricted to melee weapons, so this could be one of the few ways to access 2 Damage at Range 3+ with a card like Hurled Weapon.
Untimely Promotion
In case you were worried about having to play it safe with Skritch if you want to keep raising fighters, it’s nice to see that Krrk can still take that promotion to leader if Skritch is slain. While you’re not necessarily always in need of the backup plan, just that little bit of freedom to play Skritch more aggressively is much appreciated, particularly given that you only really have two fighters capable of any kind of significant damage output with their native weapons.
Skitter
Unfortunately sharing a name with an ability on the Tunnelpack warscroll, but with a different effect, Skitter is a once-per-game ability that allows you to push a friendly fighter adjacent to any friendly fighters as soon as you pick them to resolve a core ability. Something we will need an FAQ on here is if you can use this to make an attack or charge that would otherwise have been out of range when you picked the fighter. My guess would be that you cannot use it in this way, but if an FAQ states otherwise, that would certainly make the ability stronger. If the former interpretation is correct, the best use of this will likely be when making a guard or Swarm action, as the ability to reposition onto a token or such while making those actions will significantly improve your throughput. Needing to be adjacent to another friendly fighter when you use it feels like a bit of an unnecessary restriction that hurts the consistency of the ability, but I think you’ll generally be able to get it to work out in most games
Justified Paranoia
Justified Paranoia is another once-per-game surge ability, allowing you to give a fighter a guard token as soon as you pick them to resolve a core ability, if they are adjacent to another friendly fighter. Unfortunately, the timing on this means that you’ll be removing the guard token if you choose to make a charge, so we are looking more at move or Swarm for this one. It’s fine, but we’ve seen a number of other warbands simply get to hand out guard tokens in the power step, which is much better given the flexibility in who receives them, as well as the ability to hand them out after a charge. Again, guard is not a bad effect, particularly in the new edition, but the timing on this ability just makes it far too rigid.
‘Out My Way, Fool-Things’
The final ability on the warscroll is ‘Out My Way, Fool-Things’ which is a pseudo-Confusion, allowing you to swap the position of two adjacent friendly fighters. Note that, as this is not a ploy, it will not inspire the chosen fighters. Once again, we have what could be a strong effect that, to me, receives an unnecessarily harsh restriction in who you can pick for the ability. Historically, using Confusion to only swap two friendly fighters has either been to get them inspired, which this ability cannot do, to get a particular fighter out of a bad spot while “sacrificing” another, or to open up a charge/move which was previously unaccessible, both of which are generally pretty niche situations. As-is, I think this ability is pretty bad unfortunately, and it’s not like making it straight up the same wording as Confusion would have broken anything.
Fighters
Starting with Skritch Spiteclaw, we have the leader and schemer runemarks (we covered schemer in the warscroll discussion) with a physical profile of 5 Move, 2 Dodge, 4 Health, and 2 Bounty. This is an extremely solid stat profile, particularly with the 5 Move, which is going to be absolutely blistering speed in an edition which no longer has longboarding or offsets. He has two weapon profiles at his disposal with 1R/2H/2D and 2R/2H/1D. These are fine, but definitely begging for you to inspire him, as both attacks become quite respectable by gaining an additional die upon inspiration. Not only does the jump to 3H make for some very solid accuracy, but also increases the chances you’ll be able to hit that critical grievous proc off Scheming Pack. Only 1 Damage still on the Range 2 is a bit unfortunate, but the accuracy is desirable enough that I think this is he will still be an good early inspiration target.
The other schemer in the warband is Krrk the Almost-Trusted, sporting a physical profile of 5 Move, 1 Shield, 3 Health, and 2 Bounty. Another unfortunate victim of the new Bounty standardization, he is just a little too easy to take down when uninspired for me. His weapon profiles exactly match those of Skritch both uninspired and inspired, yet he also bumps up to 2-Dodge on his Save roll when he inspires. As high-priority as the inspiration on Skritch may be, the fact that you will likely be planning to use Krrk earlier in the game makes him my number one candidate for inspiration, especially because you want to better protect that 2 Bounty payout. If I have an early Shields Up! or similar, I’m likely to use it on him.
Getting into the (presumed) minions now, we start with the Lurking Skaven, who starts on a physical profile of 5 Move, 2 Dodge, 3 Health, and 1 Bounty, which should continue to make him a desirable early game “danglebro,” particularly with the bump up to 3 Health. His weapon profile is still pretty abysmal at 1R/2S/1D however, basically requiring a weapon upgrade if you want to get significant value out of attacking with him. Things don’t get too much better upon inspiration, going up to 1R/3S/1D on his melee attack and adding a 3R/2S/1D profile to his arsenal. Very little impetus to inspire this fighter outside of maybe trying to ease an Aggressive Defender score, but his defensive stats are enough that he will still prove to be a useful piece.
Next up is the Hungering Skaven, arguably the least useful of the bunch. He’s got a physical profile of 5 Move, 1 Shield, 3 Health, and 1 Bounty with another pretty abysmal weapon profile at 1R/2H/1D. When inspired, he adds brutal to his attack. That’s a pretty meager addition for his inspiration, even more so than what we saw with Lurking Skaven. Like in their RotMC rendition, I’m just not clear on what it is this fighter is supposed to be doing. His weapon profile is miserable and he’s the only fighter in the warband to not inspire to 2 Dodge in his Save roll. He just sadly appears to serve no specific purpose outside of being a fighter who is on the board.
Lastly, we have the Festering Skaven, who clocks in at just 5 Move, 1 Dodge, 3 Health, and 1 Bounty, again with a very poor weapon profile of 1R/2S/2D. However, he is arguably the best of the set when inspired, bouncing up to 2 Dodge while also adding a die and critical grievous to his attack profile. This likely makes him the only one of the minions you would really consider using their native attack profile during a game. While you’re likely still better off giving him a weapon upgrade, that bump to 2 Dodge continues to give him value as a positional scoring piece. He’s quite solid and worthy of an early inspiration.
Conclusion
As you may have gleaned from some of my analysis, I do think the designation of this warband as Strike is not likely to be correct. You really only have two fighters capable of putting out any significant amount of damage, short of throwing in some weapon upgrades, which is simply not going to compete with the output of more elite Strike teams (or even some hordes). That said, the fact that raised fighters have a Bounty of 0, when combined with their (largely) 2-Dodge Save characteristics does make them relatively intriguing from a Take and Hold or Flex perspective. While you won’t necessarily be able to make use of Supremacy (although it is still possible), Emberstone Sentinels looks like a pretty decent pairing here given the warband’s high movement, raising in any territory, and ability to make some native attacks from treasure tokens. Unlike a fairly large number of warbands, they are well-suited to scoring Slow Advance, and the ability to take power cards like Confusion and Agile. As for pairings, I like Pillage and Plunder (PnP) or Countdown to Cataclysm here. Both options have at least 1 solid weapon upgrade option for the minions in the warband, which will be quite helpful even despite the fact it will break once the equipped fighter is slain. I think I generally lean toward PnP here for the more reliable surge package, but you expect to be losing enough fighters that your Countdown tracker should tick up pretty reliably.
Overall, I think there actually might be a bit more play for the warband than what we saw toward the end of the first edition, where glory bleed was of larger concern than I think it will be now. Additionally, if we ever do see token movement cards come back into the game, Swarm would skyrocket in value. I do think they played it way too safe with all of the restrictions on the one-time use abilities, which will definitely limit the ceiling of the warband, but universal access to 5 Move and a heavy emphasis on 2 Dodge ought to open up the more token-related gameplay that we discussed earlier.
Feel free to let us know what you think about the new iteration of Spiteclaw’s Swarm! We hope you enjoyed reading to this point and, of course, wish you the best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory!
