Greetings fellow Kyn. Let’s boldly march into unknown territory with our review of the hardy Hernkyn. Stout of constitution, and decked out in sweet drip the Hernkyn have arrived ready to style their way into our hearts.
It’s not often when a weapon design smacks of such impracticality as the bolt shotgun, with its revolver and pump action. However, that is exactly the kind of overtop loadouts we’ve come to love with Games Workshop designs. Luckily the ruleset for the Hernkyn matches the stylishness of the models. Flexible in all the right places, with a flair bordering on theatrical, all players are sure to find something in here for them.
Faction Ability – Dauntless Explorers and Resourceful
Dauntless Explorers has two differing effects depending on whether a match is being conducted on a close quarters board or not. In a standard game it allows the Hernkyn to deploy up to three operatives wholly within four inches of their drop zone. As a consequence these operatives may not perform any shooting attacks or charge actions during the first Turning Point. On Close Quarters three operatives may perform two actions from the following list: Normal Move, Dash, or Operate Hatch. This ability is clearly meant to help make up for the reduced movement of the team, and can help to get them in position to prevent them from being too far behind on the first Turning Point.
Resourceful allows the team to generate Resource Points at the start of each Turning Point based on the number of surviving operatives you have. This cannot be used in TP1, so it will be critical to play a tight turn one to keep your resource point generation high going into Turning Point 2. These points disappear at the end of each Turning Point and may either be used to grant an operative an APL or regenerate D3+1 wounds if the operative in question is not engaged. This is an ability that is sure to make Hand of Archon players a bit jealous, while they aren’t as versatile as pain tokens you aren’t required to do anything to gain them. On the flipside you also cannot stockpile tokens for a stronger end game like blooded or pain tokens. Use it or lose it folks!
Operatives
Notably the Hernykn will require you to take at least three warriors similar to the Mandrakes of Nightmare. The Pioneers are a flat 4 inches of movement across the board, along with a 4+ armor save. Contrasting their more heavily armored Salvager kin, with resourcefulness instead of raw material might. That means you’ll be leaning on the 1-3 bonus APL throughout Turning Point 2 and onwards to push these short kings forward.
Yaegir Theyn
Our leader operative with some notable twists over the standard leaders. The Theyn comes with both ranged options and a Plasma Knife. Along with two important abilities. The first, Veteran Adventurer, grants the team an extra resource point as long as the Theyn is not distracted in melee combat. While Outright Conviction acts as a sort of mini-frenzy state, stopping the Theyn from being incapacitated the first time in the game, staying upright at 1-health for that action. This wipes out the rest of the dice pool in combat or shooting, and looks to be very powerful.
Yaegir Bladekyn
Our concealed charger, the Bladekyn sports a pair of relentless Plasma Knives with +3 Hit/Wound. His Irrepressible Hardiness lets the Bladekyn clap back when incapacitated with a leftover melee success. They’re no slouch in ranged combat either, with a Limited thrown plasma knife that Hit/Wounds on 3+ within six. This kyn seems perfectly suited for chipping away at an incoming melee threat, as the combination of thrown knives and on-death strike can see a single bladekyn doing some big damage!
Yaegir Bombast
Ah the bombast, the operative that everyone’s going to hate. His wroughtlock pistols clock in at a new nine inch range on 3+s with a balanced, lethal 5+, ⅗ damage profile. Without AP they’re mostly reliably threatening 7w operatives in a normal situation. No bombast is interested in a fair fight, as the Wroughtlock Negotiation ability allows a free Shoot action (and order flip) at the start of each firefight phase. The bombast on top of a vantage looks to be an absolute menace! In addition, Brazen Killer means each enemy operative within two inches of a bombasts’ kill can potentially get -1APL! The strongest operative on the team.
Yaegir Gunner
The Hernkyn have one gunner, and it’s honestly somewhat underwhelming. The cumbersome APM launcher can select three different firing modes, with 5 dice hitting on 4+s. With your option of:
- Armor Piercing: ⅘ Damage, AP1
- Breaching: ⅗ Damage, Blast 2”
- High Explosive: 2/4 Damage, Blast 3”
Each option has its uses but with so little AP on the team, you’ll be relying on pushing crits through in lieu of a high AP gunner. Luckily the gunner comes with a Weapon Bipod that lets you re-roll any result of one type if the gunner was stationary when firing. Reminding us of the Kommando Rokkit Boy who can stage, fire, then run to keep opposing operatives covered in explosions!
Yaegir Ironbreak
For players dedicated to the scouts we’re sorry that a single operative can steal your flare so quickly! The Ironbreak brings along his own minefield, a selection of five tokens where three of them explode to cause at least 3 mortal wounds. Mines work better against worse armor saves, and one can be reset each turning point when the Ironbreak activates. Luckily these must be more than six inches from the enemy dropzone and more than two inches from objectives. Allowing opponents to map a path around these mines. Loadout wise the Ironbreak is a middling mid-range operative with a six inch range bolt revolver and a very poor melee profile with only 3 attacks.
Yaegir Riflekyn
Riflekyn are a restrictive bog-standard sniper operative. With the double retaining Weavewerke Cloak that looks functionally identical to many factions’ camo cloaks. Its magnacoil rifle is a 4 attack, 2+s, AP1, 3/3 damage, and MW3. Unfortunately being Heavy it’s really going to limit how much the riflekyn’s scope can actually see.
Yaegir Tracker
The Tracker is one of the more interesting models, and one of our cooler operatives. Pulling off the short kings imitation of splinter cell with those sweet tri-goggles.Those Pan Spectral Goggles allow the tracker to treat activated operatives within six inches of it as unobscured and as Engaged. Additionally the Tracker ability lets us re-roll any dice results of one type against those activated operatives. Really putting the focus on the hitting enemy operatives who’ve done their thing. Silent ranged weapons keep the focus on a concealed Tracker. Unfortunately the SiNR Handbow’s 4+ 3/5 damage profile leaves a little to be desired so it seems the single use six inch range Throwing Hatchet’s 3+ 3/5 Rending might be the first choice when applicable. No slouch in melee we’ve got 4 attacks on 3+s with 4/5 damage. Meaning the Tracker is a silent swiss army knife.
Yaegir Warrior
Our humble warriors are equipped with either bolt revolvers + plasma knives, or bolt shotguns + fists. We can either lean into the accuracy of our shotguns or focusing on melee threats. Either way we’re limited in long-range threat and we’ll need to position very carefully! Looking at our potential weapons and their loadouts:
- Bolt Reolver: 4 attacks, 4+s, ⅗ damage, range 6”
- Bolt Shotguns have 4 potential profiles
- Short Range: 4 attacks, 3+s, 4/4 damage, range 6”
- Short Range with Firestorm Shells (1EP), 4 attacks, 3+s, 2/4, range 6”, Blast 1
- Long Range: 4 attacks, 5+s, 2/2 damage
- Long Range with Stabilised Shells (1EP), 4 attacks, 4+s, 3/3 damage
- Plasma Knife: 4 attacks, 4+s, 3/5 damage, Lethal 5+
- Fists: 3 attacks, 4+s, 2/3 damage
Our warriors can be equipped for a variety of situations without truly excelling in any of them. Unlike Hearthkyn, Yaegir don’t easily retain crits, or get access to team-wide improved ballistic skill. Against the 8 wound teams you’ll be relying on massed Bolt Shotguns to clean up opponents, but it will truly be the weight of fire that brings things down.
Ploys
Yaegir get access to a flavorful set of ploys that, while good, don’t seem to be overbearing in comparison to the Nightmare release. Notable flavor wins are Hidden Engagement and No Kin Left Behind, really setting the narrative stage for your battles! Equally nice is the flat 1CP cost across the board so having one less piece of book keeping is great.
Strategic Ploys
Hidden Engagement: When a Yaegir is shooting an opponent from cover the Yaegir gains a re-roll. Forcing you to estimate cover from your opponent’s point of view is a novel way to gain a re-roll, and with only four inches of movement it’s probably in your best interest to remain in cover!
Masterful Bladework: One of our more questionable ploys, with the lack of any really compelling melee operatives. We get a single melee re-roll when we are the active operative or while we are concealed. This means we’re generally getting charged and getting the re-roll, or charging with a bold six inch threat range. Neither seems particularly good so I expect we skip this one more often than not.
Tough Survivalist: Starstrider’s best ploy rears its ugly head without restrictions! Each operative can block half the damage of the first dice applied to it during each turning point. This ploy on starstriders was almost a must use, and a less restrictive version seems like a no-brainer. With 8 wounds and resourceful heals globally, we’re expecting this to be online most turns.
In Position: Team-wide super conceal, for all operatives on conceal. When you need to stay safe from shooting on Turning Point 1 In Position has you covered! Good when it’s good, and with a pair of silent long-range weapons opponents may struggle to interact with you.
Tactical Ploys
Stalwart Defense – A reactive Overwatch when a friendly Yaegir is put into engagement by an enemy operative. If you have a friendly Yaegir within six inches of the charged Yaegir, you can take a shot at the charger, breaking the restriction on engagement range shooting. This really incentivizes keeping each Kyn in a tight six inch network, so each Kyn can cover for incoming melee operatives. An excellent way to show off the tight bonds of the kinfolk.
Hardy – Downgrading an opponent’s retained critical hit to a normal hit. An unassuming ploy that generally plays better than it looks. Keep an eye on when slamming the breaks in melee where the loss of power sword crits can really mess up an opponent’s day! Great when combined with Tough Survivalist.
Bonds that Bind – One Yaegir within three inches of an activating Yaegir can go after the first one activates. A pretty bog standard GA2 ploy, with one major restriction. Neither can be the Bombast if it used its Wroughtlock Negotiation at the start of the firefight. Considering the power of Pathfinder’s GA2 chicanery this should be pretty powerful in the right situations, especially when considering it can be a paired activation of 3APL Yaegir!
No Kin Left Behind – The second flavor win, No Kin Left Behind turns an incapacitated Yaegir into a three inch aura token that lets you push one failure to a normal success or one success into a critical. You can only have one token up at a time, but considering your low initial BS, and the higher crit damage of many of our guns this will overperform. If you can line up an expendable Kyn in the middle objective you can setup powerful melee and shooting actions.
Equipment
Plasma Knife [2EP]: The current classic Kyn melee weapon with 4 attacks, +4 Hit/Wound, Lethal 5+, and 3/5 damage. Considering we’ve got a few dudes in melee, looking at you Ironbreak, we expect that this is purchased somewhat often. When in range of your No Kin Left Behind token these will overperform, so keep an eye out on that.
Bolt Revolver [1EP]: Same as the warrior, with seemingly very few reasons to actually purchase it.
Bolt Shotgun [3EP]: The big boi gun, with both a long range and a short range profile. If you’re ever planning on firing the long range profile, you’re probably looking at a 4 EP package. Whether or not you’d ever upgrade a specialist to be capable or that seems unlikely. However the 4 attacks, 3+s, 4/4 damage on the short range profile is certainly an upgrade on the Ironbreak and Bladekyn in some situations.
Notably the Tracker can make some good use of the flatter damage profile of the shotgun. Against 5+ saves on 7 wound operatives a shotgun wielding Tracker can be a much more consistent threat with his bonuses to activated operatives.
Climbing Equipment [1EP]: Standard stuff, probably better when your operatives are restricted to 4 inches of movement.
Stabilised Shells [1EP]: A strange one in that it locks your shotgun operatives to 4 attacks, 4+s, 3/3 damage. Unless you spend the 1AP to switch back to the short range profile. This is our only way to add more long range operatives to the team, and maaaaybe that’s worthwhile sometimes. I’d probably try this and discard them pretty quickly. The 1APL might sting less for a resourceful Theyn.
Firestorm Bolt Shells [1EP]: Then we get to the firestorm shells which incur no penalty for the bonus profile they provide to the Bolt Shotguns. Which seems somewhat insulting. On ITD these may have some extra usage, and forcing an opponent to space out for 1EP is probably a worthwhile trade. Looking at the calculators, the loss of that 2 normal damage probably isn’t worth it on ITD where we gain Lethal 5+. Which makes these probably only a sometimes take on ITD and against horde teams.
Gravitic Concussion Grenade [2EP]: Standard blast two inch grenade with 2/4 damage. Nothing to write home about.
KV-Ceramide Undersuit [2EP]: No splash damage and re-roll defence dice against Blast and Torrent. An interesting option against teams like Heirotek on ITD, where massed splash fires are to be expected. Against teams angling to get a big blast off early you could also line up a pair of operatives with this to bait opposing blasts to return fire. Not expecting this to be good in general, but it should find a use from time to time.
Tac Ops
The Yaegir have access to Infiltration and Seek and Destroy. Meaning they aren’t as flexible as their in-box opponents. Meanwhile the faction tac ops we do have seem scorable, but not overwhelmingly so. Generally they do provide avenues to score without focusing on new actions, many of them on incapping opponents which we will need to do to win.
Ruthless Exploitation: Reveal after killing an activated operative, then do it again in two separate Turning Points. Probably bad in the sense that you need to do this three times in a row, and an opponent can actively attempt to deny this once you’ve revealed it. It does lean well into the Seek and Destroy archetype but having this many conditionals reminds me of Executioner which tends to be harder to use.
Bonds of Loyalty: Reveal when a friendly operative is incapacitated. If you incap an enemy who has incapacitated a friendly during the current turning point then score a point. Then do it again in a separate turn. In terms of tracking this it can be annoying, but it functions easily enough. One of the more scorable tac ops, especially since we’re planning on being in cover shooting all the time.
Protect Locator Beacon: Select ANY objective marker in the first target reveal. If you can keep enemy operatives from being within two inches of that objective marker for the battle, you get a point. Then at the end of the game if you control that objective get the other point. It’s interesting that this Tac Op feels very Security-ish, when the team doesn’t have access to the archetype. However the first bullet point is always going to be harder to manage. Against some teams on some boards this could be used to get an opponent to overcommit while you rain fire down their approach.
Example Roster
- Yaegir Theyn
- Yaegir Bladekyn
- Yaegir Bombast
- Yaegir Gunner
- Yaegir Ironbreak
- Yaegir Riflekyn
- Yaegir Tracker
- Yaegir Warrior, Bolt Pistol + Plasma Knife
- Yaegir Warrior, Bolt Pistol + Plasma Knife
- Yaegir Warrior, Bolt Pistol + Plasma Knife
- Yaegir Warrior, Bolt Shotgun + Fists
- Yaegir Warrior, Bolt Shotgun + Fists
- Yaegir Warrior, Bolt Shotgun + Fists
One of everything and an even split of warrior types to fill it out. Nothing special here as we’ve only got 7 uniques, and must take at least three warriors. Many of our choices will be in equipment loadout as we can modify quite a bit in those selections. If you want you can add a few more of each warrior type in the unlikely event you wish to swap a specialist out.
Final Thoughts
Overall this team looks to be a whole different beast to the Hearthkyn Salvagers. While they both share slower movement, they approach the idea of slow and steady in vastly different ways. I think that the team will be worse overall than the Salvagers, but be more immediately playable. The dual package of three forward deploys, a pair of silent guns, and floating APL generation is a set of tools that should be much more accessible. However, resourceful points taper off as the game closes, instead of getting stronger, and the 4+ save is not nearly as reliable as the Salvagers 3+. Luckily for the Hernkyn they have a unique set of strengths and look incredibly flavorful to play. Being able to splinter cell activated operatives, while setting up 3APL plays looks to be a nice change of pace. The team also includes a fair amount of equipment flexibility so I expect good generals to be able to shore up matches with heads up decision making. Looking forward to seeing their play in the coming weeks if any Killteam players can peel them from the 40k players fingers.
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