Intro
The noble questing nights of the Grymwatch, led by Duke Crackmarrow, have found their way to the war-torn city of Embergard. These questing heroes travel for glory, riches, and the honor of their Summerking! While the Grymwatch have been long favorites of many an Underworld player, they have been changed and affected by their journeys, and now arrive in the recent edition of Underworlds with fresh abilities, stats, and a drive to see their enemies cast out. Join us as we take a look at these decorated heroes!
Warscroll Card
First, we can take a look at the Inspire condition on the Warscroll Card. This is fairly wordy, but you total up the Bounty characteristics of any fighters not in your Territory or who are dead at the end of the Round, and can Inspire that many fighters. This is a pretty solid Inspiration, as your opponent will generally not be able to (or may not wish to) get their whole team into your territory in a single Round, and you may slay a fighter that dares walk into your territory. This gives a pretty solid amount of Inspired Fighters most of the time, though it does mean that you only have two chances to meet the condition, so you have to plan your Battle Rounds accordingly. Although…
If we look at the first Ability, In The Name Of The King!, we find another way to Inspire. This Ability is done in a Power Step, which is fantastic since you have lots of chances to use it and a lot of flexibility in when it happens. You can Inspire a fighter or Raise a fighter, or both if you are the Underdog. Since you are a team with a lot of 2 Health fighters, you’ll often be the Underdog in early stages of the game. In Round 1, simply waiting for a Fighter to be Slain and then Raising them and Inspiring a fighter immediately is very, very strong. You do need to protect Crackmarrow for this ability, but as we’ll see, he’s a pretty solid fighter overall. This really is the big enabling Ability for your team, though you’ll need some experience to know when and where to use it, when to use the worse version when you’re not the Underdog, etc. Mastering your Raise is a big part of Grymwatch.
Then we get to the Delusions. The interesting thing here is that you don’t get any more Active Abilities, instead you get one buff per round. And each of these buffs is quite good, in my opinion. You cannot repeat these, so knowing when to use which one will be the mark of a good Grymwatch player. But for now, let’s read into them and discuss them a bit.
Defenders of the Realm gives a solid defensive buff. Rerolling a Save dice is an Upgrade that’s worth 2 Glory when you look at Agile in Emberstone Sentinels, for instance. And you get it on everyone! Well…. Everyone in your territory. Most decks in the game encourage some amount of moving out of your territory, so there likely will be some anti-synergy with your Objective Cards. That said, it’s a very strong effect, and I think you will often pop this Round 1 if you want to survive a bit better before striking out across the midline, or on a Round you think Crackmarrow is in the most danger to boost his defenses.
The Royal Hunt is your offensive buff, giving extra dice against hurt enemies. Again, +1 Attack dice is a massive buff that’s worth 2 Glory on Upgrades like Keen Eye. I like this in later Battle Rounds as things will likely be damaged by then. There’s also some solid synergy with the new Wrack and Ruin Rivals Deck, since there’s a number of ping cards in there that can be used to set up the bonus and make your opponent quake in fear.
And finally, we see To The Walls! The utility Delusion, gives you the ability to use your Active Ability twice for the Round. This is super interesting, as you will have 4 great Raises per game, and/or 4 Inspired Fighters regardless of your opponent’s positioning. It’s solid on a turn you imagine you’ll be the Underdog for a good part of it, so you can really get the most benefit. I think against good fast aggro teams you can try to use this in Battle Round 1, somewhat negating some early charges by immediately Raising your Fighters and getting early Inspire on important models. However, if you think your opponent is going to play a slower game, this might be more useful later on to recoup some losses. Just keep in mind that this Delusion is useless if Crackmarrow dies, so there’s a lot to consider when using this ability tactically.
Overview
What a Warscroll! I think Delusions are great, each one gives you massive power boosts if you use them right, though you’ll really need to be a good tactician to know when and where to apply them. They have, in my opinion, one of the better Raises in the game, as it has extremely flexible positioning and takes place in the Power Step so you don’t have to waste one of your Actions doing it. As someone who is a long time enjoyer of The Grymwatch, I’m very, very happy with this card.
Fighters
Then we move onto the fighters. Starting with Duke Crackmarrow, our honored Leader. Crackmarrow is the only fighter on the team with 4 Wounds, and indeed, the only fighter with more than 2! He also starts respectably on one Shield and inspires to two Dodges, which combined with Defenders of the Realm makes him fairly durable against a lot of opponents in the game. I would say his attack is also quite good – he starts with two ok attacks on his Uninspired side, but he is one of the few models in the game that has been granted a Range 2 Damage 2 attack. Many fighters are limited to 2 Damage at Range 1 and 1 Damage at Range 2, like his Uninspired side, even when they Inspire, so it’s great to see Crackmarrow with a solid attack on his halberd. On top of that, it’s not Grievous, so you can stack it with Great Strength! However, Crackmarrow is the backbone of your team in terms of utility, so he doesn’t necessarily want to be on the front lines using that solid attack that much, preferring to use it defensively to cast out enemies who dare trespass on his Territory.
As all your fighters Raise, and therefore lose Upgrades when they do, Crackmarrow also represents your best fighter to give Upgrades to. While you may throw an Upgrade on a fighter you expect to die for a powerful turn, Crackmarrow can hold them for a solid amount of time and benefit from them longer (usually). You need to be careful with positioning Crackmarrow as he’s very important, but you also want him to contribute to the game with his solid stats. Balancing this will be another great point of skill expression. You may wish to Inspire him early for the Attack boost, but if you are playing cautiously with him early, he might wait to Inspire until some of your other fighters are given the honor.
The Duke’s Harriers are the only non-Ghoul on the team. They start with a solidly accurate (though low damage) attack Uninspired, that only gains Ensnare when they Inspire. However, the big bonus for Inspiring comes from gaining that extra point of Movement and the extra Save Dice, which might be worthwhile by itself. You can rely on these bats to get you a relatively reliable hit, though don’t expect them to be clearing opponents by themselves. Move 5 and Fly also makes them great at striking out and getting on Tokens or out of danger, so their positioning tools cannot be overlooked.
The Night’s Herald and Master Talon are two identical fighters. Same poor Uninspired Attack, same good but not great Inspired attack, same +1 Save, same everything. These are likely your least value models to Inspire. While 2 Dodge is good, that’s what everyone gets, and most other Fighters get better benefits for Inspiring overall. However, as a horde warband you’ll ultimately have to use every piece as best you can, so your Pawns are still a part of the team.
The Royal Butcher is a bit of a step up compared to the other two. While his Uninspired side is exactly the same, he gains a much better attack upon Inspiring. 4 Swords with Cleave is very, very likely to hit, especially into Shield teams. Now it’s only Damage 1, and if you give him Grievous you lose Cleave, but sometimes you just need an attack to hit, and he’ll do it for you, especially if you do it on a Royal Hunt Delusion for a 5 dice Cleave attack.
Valreek is another solid step up from your other Ghouls, starting on 2 Damage, though with the same miserable 2 Sword stat. Inspiring her brings her to the quite respectable 3 Sword 2 Damage attack, on top of the Save boost, so she’s a top candidate for early Inspiration. You don’t have that many fighters that can break their base 1 Damage very easily, so Valreek will become a solid core piece.
And finally, we get to Gristlewel, the ever-faithful questing knight. He starts on a whopping 3 Damage, which is not terribly common, especially since it’s flat 3 Damage and not 2 Damage Grievous. That means he’s one of the few fighters in the game that can get to 4 Damage with a single boost. Unfortunately, he starts on 2 Swords as well, but he Inspires to a respectable 3 Swords. He also has a slightly better starting Save on a Shield, making him a fairly respectable piece all around. Even while Uninspired, any type of Accuracy card or Royal Hunt Delusion will make him a serious threat to anything that’s hurt. Gristlelwel will be your opponent’s least favorite piece, and your favorite one to Raise, as a 3 Damage fighter that doesn’t give Bounty is absolutely terrifying for some warbands.
Overview
Overall, this is a nice set of Fighters! You have to really try to mitigate your Battle Round 1 weakness of bad Uninspired stats by proper positioning and good use of In The Name Of The King, but I think when you do, you will become a properly scary force, especially if you use Valreek, Gristlewel, and Crackmarrow to good effect. As I said on the Warscroll card, learning who to Raise and when (and therefore, as well, where to position fighters) is going to be a very important part of this game plan.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, The Grymwatch are looking pretty solid in my opinion! They will die fast, but they come back with no Bounty and Inspire to pretty solid stats. Learning to mitigate the early bleed will be big. In terms of how to play them, I think they work best as a Flex playstyle, trying to get to deep Treasure by Raising in the enemy Edge Hexes and spreading around the board with their decent speed to split your opponent’s forces.
At the time of writing this article, I like them with Pillage and Plunder and perhaps Wrack and Ruin for the noted combo with Royal Hunt, and to supplement their accurate but low Damage attacks. Unfortunately, I’m not sure they’re a great mix for Emberstone Sentinels due to Supremacy being hard to score for Raised Fighters due to their lack of Bounty. However, they are pretty good at scoring the rest of the set, so I think some playtesting is in order! You can also consider a Strike style of play by constantly Raising Gristlewel and using his absolutely scary Inspired Attack to smash and bash enemies.
How will you lead the Grymwatch to honorable glory? Let us know! And as always, best of luck to you on your Path To Glory!
