Fyreslayers come to Warcry with the Vulkyn Flameseekers, which also added a 4th unit to the army in AoS (though that has not gone down well given their abilities and points cost). In this article we’re looking at the warband and what they’re capable of.
Table of Contents
Abilities and Reaction
Reaction
Runic Flare: After a model has been targeted by a melee attack but before dice are rolled, make this reaction. Up to two criticals from that attack action are counted as normal hits instead. This is not a great reaction compared to others that inflict damage on your opponent, allow you to disengage after the attack or simply reduce damage received without specific conditions. Best used if your opponent is rolling a lot of dice (4 or 5) though you can be giving up an action for very little or no return in a lot of cases.
Abilities
Double – Blazing Impetus – If a model has made two move actions in the turn you may use this ability to make a bonus move or disengage action. Very useful for getting models to move faster across the board, and vital in a warband where everything is move 3.
Double – Ignite Weapon – Count one miss from this fighter in it’s next attack action as a critical hit instead. This is very good, in particular on a model with a lot of dice to generate the necessary miss, like the Drothblood Thane with five dice, or when facing a model like a Chaos Knight or big doughy Stormcast with toughness 6.
Double – Kyndlebreath – Pick a visible enemy fighter within 6″ of this model and roll a number of dice equal to the value of this ability. For each 5+ allocate 1 damage to the fighter and each other visible enemy fighter within 2″ of it. This is only useable by your baby dragon. This is great if you get a double 5 or 6, great at putting some chip damage on groups of enemy models, and you can throw it into melee moshpits as it only effects enemies.
Triple – Berserk Rampage – Pick an enemy fighter within 1″ and roll a number of dice equal to the value of this ability. For each dice that matches the value of this ability, allocate damage to the target equal to the value of the ability. For each dice that does not match the value, score 1 point of damage. Only useable by the Drothblood Thane, who is quite punchy without it, this starts getting really good when the value of the ability is 4 or higher. This bypasses toughness so it’s great for piling damage onto a model that’s hard to kill otherwise.
Triple – Creed of Flame – Pick a friendly fighter that is not within 6″. That fighter makes two bonus move actions or a bonus attack action. If the fighter has the Beast runemark it can make two bonus move actions and then a bonus attack action. This can be stacked with Blazing Impetus to potentially have a baby dragon model perform six actions in a turn or a normal model hump treasure away with five move actions. Useable by the Drothmaster only and provides a solid reason to put him in a deployment away from your baby dragon.
Quad – Aspect of the Scale – Pick a visible enemy within 3″. Roll six dice, for every result of 2+ allocate damage to the target equal to half the value of the ability, rounding up. Useable by any model, if the ability is 5 or 6 then you are potentially dropping 18 points of damage on something that again bypasses toughness.
Heroes
The only hero in the warband is the Runefather, but he comes with two flavours of melee weapons.
Vulkyn Runefather with Mastercrafted Bokaz/Drothvault Greataxe
A very solid melee fighter with reach 2 on their melee weapons and toughness 5 and 22 wounds when taking a punch back. The runefather has two melee weapon options, the Drothvault Greataxe is 5 points cheaper than the Mastercrafted Bokaz. Both are reach 2 and the average damage is given below.
| Weapon | vs T3 | vs T4 | vs T5 | vs T6 |
| Mastercrafted Bokaz | 5.5 | 5.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
| Drothvault Greataxe | 6.67 | 5.33 | 4 | 4 |
The Runefather is a solid hero with decent toughness and wounds and decent melee damage output. All Flameseekers models have a ranged weapon as well, which mitigates their slow speed slightly, but really low speed is the only thing holding this hero back.
Fighters
Drothblood Thane
This is the melee monster of the band, with a five dice strength 4 2/4 attack.
| Fighter | vs T3 | vs T4 | vs T5 | vs T6 |
| Drothblood Thane | 8.33 | 6.67 | 5 | 5 |
As you can see this is great for mincing through T3 enemies, and access to the Berserk Rampage ability increases the models ability to output damage even more. Only slightly less tough than a Runefather with toughness 5 and 20 wounds, this is the melee brawler you need to kick enemy models off objectives and if you’ve got two boxes, I’d recommend taking two of them.
Drothmaster
With the Creed of Flame ability and a reach 3 melee weapon, you’ll want a Drothmaster, but given the range restriction on Creed of Flame you’ll want him to stay well away from the baby dragon, treasure carrier or other key models you want to use the ability on. Fortunately this model is a born skirmisher able to engage from outside of melee range of most enemies and with a missile weapon if they want to stay further away. Toughness 4 and 20 wounds means they’ll stick around for a while, but they aren’t unkillable.
Kyndledroth
The baby dragon that is bound to be everyone’s favourite miniature in the warband. However it’s, like many smaller beasts, not hugely tough. With move 4 it’s the fastest model in the warband, and the Creed of Flame ability can make it massively faster, but it’s best picking on weedier fighters as toughness 4 and 10 wounds means it won’t be squaring off on equal terms with anything particularly big. The Kyndlebreath ability is great for putting chip damage on enemy models grouped together or ganging up on one of your fighters, but this isn’t as brutal, fast or tough as some of the beasts we’ve seen in other warbands, where they’re great for rushing to claim table quarters towards the end of the game.
Scalebreaker with Fyresteel Splitaxe/with Bokaz
The rank and file of the warband, a solid melee fighter that’s pretty nasty by Warcry standards, with the only drawback that they’re slow. The melee options cost exactly the same and have the same damage output split as the Runefathers, with one better against toughness 3 and 6 and the other better against toughness 4 and 5. Overall this model is a solid rank and file trooper, and toughness 4 and 12 wounds puts them at the same level as a lot of the elite troopers in the Chaos cultist bands.
| Weapon | vs T3 | vs T4 | vs T5 | vs T6 |
| Firesteel Splitaxe | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Bokaz | 5.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
Example Warband
This box clocks in at 1015 or 1020 points depending on how the Runefather is equipped, putting you in an odd position to start and meaning you’ll end up going with an 8 model warband. With two boxes you can go with the following:
Runefather with Mastercrafted Bokaz
2 Drothblood Thanes
2 Drothmasters
Kyndledroth
2 Scalebreakers
For 8 models and exactly 1000 points, but with a very solid output of melee and redundancy on most abilities.
Overview and Suggested Allies
This team has a lot of strengths – good melee damage output, toughness, abilities, every model having a ranged attack and reach 2/3 on most models. But the big drawback is speed. While Warcry generally having four turns per game now makes it more forgiving for slower factions, a move of 3 means that unless you are using Blazing Impetus or Creed of Flame to get an extra move you’re only going a maximum of 6″ a turn (and if you do sacrificing making attack actions).
With access to the Order factions to pull allies from you can take some much higher movement characters, but doing so will likely drop you to seven models in the warband. The temptation is to get a balloon dwarf or a cavalry model who can dart out and grab treasure or objectives, but I’d only really worry about it for the Cursed Relic scenario, where whoever starts dragging the treasure away first gains a definite advantage. If you do want to mix in an Underworlds warband then I’d look for either numbers, speed or both in what you take.
This is not a complicated faction, and while the reaction is very situational you have some very good doubles and triples, and every model is decently tough with a decent stack of wounds. If your opponent tries to pelt you with ranged weapons every model you have has the ability to shoot back, and you can dish our some chip damage with your throwing axes or baby dragon fireball.
Conclusion
A much better warband for Warcry than unit for AoS (which is a genuine shame and hopefully corrected in the next battletome) and a faction that has definite strengths and one big weakness, which leads you into thinking about how to play to it’s strengths and mitigate it’s weaknesses. The models are good, and add much needed variety to the Fyreslayer range, and I love that Warcry warbands generally come with some sort of pet (that sits somewhere on the cute to weird looking scale).
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