Detachment Focus: Brandfast Oathband

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Brandfast Oathband from the Leagues of Votann.

Kin and children that yearn for the mines of all ages, START YOUR ENGINES! The racetrack is loaded with yield, and it’s time to race for the gold. So slam your foot on the gas and get ready to take part in the Brandfast Oathband.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes. We have also been provided with a provisional Munitorum Field Manual for the army to use when writing the review, but please note that these points are subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.

Detachment Overview

The Brandfast Oathband is a Detachment that works with a core bedrock of transports. It emphasizes using transport to increase the effectiveness of your infantry units, especially ones that shoot. It has a few mobility tricks as well, but you will need to plan ahead to best utilize them. You will most certainly take 1-3 Land forts with this Detachment, as well as an assortment of Sagitaur and Kapricus. Units like Thunderkyn, Steeljacks, and Hearthguard all gain boosts, and you will certainly bring some Hearthkyn Warriors for sticky objectives as well as getting split into 5s with the Sagitaur. Brandfast Oathband will be able to deliver some withering fire augmented by their transports, so keeping them alive is the name of the game.

I will say that since this is the “transport Detachment”, it comes with the stigma that most all transport-based Detachments that have come out so far just haven’t quite been good enough. I hope this one will break the mold.

Detachment Rule: Mobile Sensor Relays

Mobile Sensor Relays means all your vehicles got Blue Force Tracker in ’em; you know where your forces are and where to hit the enemy. The Detachment rule gives all Votann infantry wholly within 6″ of a Votann transport Sustained Hits 1 with ranged attacks. This rule wants you to lean into infantry shooty units like Steeljacks and Thunderkyn, and transports, which you were gonna take anyway. On face value this is a fairly nice rule to get for just showing up, but it really shines with Conversion Beamer Thunderkyn. Since Beamerkyn crit hit on 4s if the target is 12″-24″ away, being able to tack Sus 1 on top of Lethal hits is just downright silly.

Enhancements

The enhancements are okay, with one real stand out.

• Tactical Alchemy (10 pts): A Kahl with this enhancement can in your Command phase, if the bearer’s unit is in range of an objective you control outside your deployment zone, spend 1 YP. If you do, roll a D6, on a 4+ gain 1CP. CP gain abilities are strong, but this being locked to a Kahl, having to have the objective lock, and requiring a 4+ dice roll, feels extremely limiting. A 50/50 to get a CP is already not great odds, but adding on that you might not even meet the criteria for more than 1 to 2 turns is a little crazy.
• Trivarg Cyber Implant (30 pts): Any Leagues of Votann character can take this enhancement. The Cyber Implant gives the bearers unit in your shooting phase Sus 2 for the turn when they disembark or when you spend 2YP. You already have easy access to Sus 1 for units that could benefit from this enhancement, but it is twice as good, and doesn’t have the requirement of being wholly within 6″ of a transport. This allows the unit to operate independently and opens up coming in from strategic reserves (without having to drive a transport over to where they are coming in). Put this enhancement on a Strategist in a Volkite Steeljack unit or an Ironmaster in a Beamerkyn unit and profit.
• Precursive Judgement (15 pts): Again Kahl only, while the bearer’s unit is wholly within 6” of a Votann transport, you can Overwatch for 0CP and hit on unmod 5s. Having another unit that can hit on 5s in Overwatch is pretty wild (Steeljacks with Volkite being the other if you weren’t tracking), however since this enhancement is Kahl only that means the unit benefiting must be a Hearthkyn Warrior unit or Einhyr Hearthguard. If you are bringing a brick of Hearthguard (bless your heart) with a Kahl, this enhancement is an auto include, since in addition to above, your unit will also have Lethal and Sustained Hits 1 on all its shooting.
• Signature Restoration (5 pts): Enhancement for an Iron-master, each time the bearer heals with Forgewrought Expertise, they heal for an additional 1 wound. Niche, but a decent use of 5pts if you have it lying around.

Stratagems

All of the Brandfast stratagems lean further into utilizing transports and infantry. Most are semi situational but generally very strong.

• Secure Positions (1 CP): If you are in Hostile Acquisition, at the end of any phase you can target a transport. One unit disembarks from that transport wholly within 6″. This strat opens up a ton of options in gameplay. You can use it at the end of your opponents fight phase, to disembark onto an objective that you weren’t on already, to score more primary points on your turn. You can use it at the end of your opponents shooting phase, to get in the way of a charging unit, or better yet to draw a line to overwatch an enemy unit that you know if gonna charge (you know with Steeljacks that overwatch on 5s, with Sus 1). In your turn if the normal move + disembark isn’t quite far enough, for a shooting angle or getting on an objective, etcetera, you can use this to Disembark 6″ just for a little farther movement. Also, think about this, RAW you now effectively have Assault Ramp with this strat. You can disembark a unit at the end of the shooting phase and still charge, the charge restriction is movement phase locked. Is that too good? Probably. Will it survive an FAQ? Good question. From a balance perspective, its good that this strat is locked to Hostile Acquisition only, so there is some restriction to it.
  Wings: Yeah, so I’m in the camp that this definitely won’t survive an FAQ – essentially, the restriction on not charging after disembarking post-move applies to units that disembark in the same phase as the move, but wait till the next phase to get fired out of your ejector seat and you’re laughing. Your opponent isn’t, but this isn’t about them. As soon as you start digging into the nuance this gets weird too because it’s very clear that the various rules around disembarking are just assuming there is only one time in a turn you can do it, and some rules apply restrictions based on the turn (technically I’m not sure you can use this at all after Advancing?), some on the phase, and there’s no real internal logic to it. Fix this GW!
• Bastion Running (1 CP): In your movement phase you can normal move or advance (no fallback?) through walls with a Land Fort. Look at me, I am the Kool Aid man now.
• Illuminated Priority (1 CP): In your shooting phase, target an enemy unit that a Votann Vehicle has hit with a shooting attack. All Votann Infantry that shoots that enemy unit rerolls 1s to hit. This stratagem leans further into the focus of the Detachment, shooting infantry units. So if you have one target in particular that needs to be grudged to death, shoot it with a vehicle, pop this strat, shoot some Beamerkyn at it and if it lives through all that, it won’t have cover now since your Beamerkyn shot it.
• Inexorable Efficiency (1 CP): Votann Unit can fallback and shoot. Stock stratagem, works every time.
• Opportunistic Escalation (1 CP): Enemy shooting phase, if you are in Hostile Acquisition. After a Sagitaur or Kapricus was shot, it can reactive move D6″. A little niche, but real nice if it lets you duck out of LoS from more incoming fire and preserving another transport.
• Vengeance Flare (2 CP): Enemy shooting phase, after an enemy has shot an infantry unit. One transport within 6″ of that infantry unit shoots back. Another kind of niche stratagem, but if your opponent shoots an infantry unit near a Land Fort and doesn’t kill the infantry unit outright, being able to slap that enemy unit out of existence is pretty cool. Also just having this in the pocket helps prevent your opponent from trying to use units to deal chip damage to your infantry.

Playing This Detachment

This Detachment will rely heavily on movement and placement of your transports, in order to leverage your rules best. It can be flexible early by having units disembark in strange points of the turn, has high mobility potential, and can jail opponents as well.

Strengths

• Steeljacks and Beamerkyn shoot very hard
• Out of phase disembark make for a lot of big brain play
• Doesn’t heavily rely on using YP

Weaknesses

• If your transports die, you lose a bunch of rules
• Your best shooting units can only ride in a Land Fort
• Vehicle heavy gameplay makes deployment and moving around the table harder

A Sample List

Mandatory windmill slam two Land Forts, Volkite Steeljacks, Beamerkyn, some Warriors for sticky, and a Sagitaur or three to split em.

ROCK N STONE RACING - click to expand

This list has six transports to spread the love of the Detachment benefits, you have five Yaegirs infiltrate where you need them, and the Kapricus/Pioneers get that sweet Scout 9” rule to extend where you need them pregame. The Warriors can do a cheeky sticky on a NML objective turn 2, if you disembark 6” at the end of your opponents fight phase turn 1. The three Pioneers offer some mission play with the uppy downy, but are also decent at screening your backfield with their bases. This list leans into shooting, but has a little counter punch with Buri/Uthar/Beserks.

Final Thoughts

I think this Detachment has all the tools needed in order to be one of the stronger Detachments that Votann has access to. It can hit hard and has mobility tools, which is always phenomenal. I most certainly will be using this Detachment exclusively.

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