Another preorder day has come for Warhammer Underworlds. There’s a bevy of releases available to preorder today and Goonhammer is going to cover all of them. Alongside the Spitewood Expansion Set, there were also four boxes of warbands from the previous edition that were re-released with updated rules. This article will take a look at the four Order warbands contained in the Seekers in Shadow box. I’d like to extend thanks to Games Workshop for providing these materials early for Goonhammer to review.
Check out the rest of the Goonhammer coverage of the Spitewood Expansion Set and accompanying releases once you’ve finished poking around in these shadows!
You can find all our content for this big preorder day below:
- Spitewood & Grand Alliance Box Overview
- Spitewood Unboxing
- Decks of Spitewood: Hunting Grounds and Deadly Synergy
- Warbands of Spitewood: Kurnoth’s Heralds and The Blood of the Bull
- Chaos Warbands: Reavers of Ruin
- Death Warbands: Morbid Minions
- Destruction Warbands: Gitz and Goliaths
- Order Warbands: Seekers in Shadow
Xandire’s Truthseekers
Xandire’s Truthseekers are a Flex warband of Stormcasts. It’s one of those “Dungeons & Dragons party” styled warbands where we have a mix of different classes and they even come with a pet in the form of Taros.
We’re also lucky enough to be joined by none other than Blake Law from Art of War, a Renaissance man skilled in both playing and painting!
Blake: This warband is part of the long standing tradition of Games Workshop giving unbelievable sculpt love to the Underworld’s Stormcast line. Although these are old models, I don’t think I am alone in my excitement to see them return to the game. From a game perspective, you get three cloaked heavy armor knights and a hawk pet. From a paint perspective, you get all the essential things that make a model fun. OSL. Clean armor sculpts. Smooth cloaks. Birds.
Maybe I have blinders for these guys because of the joy the models bring aesthetically. Either way, I have a lot of good to say about Xandire’s Truthseekers!
Jake: These were some of the first Stormcast models that I saw from AoS which really made me appreciate the design. The earlier releases like the Farstriders were just a bit too chunky for my tastes, but Xandire’s Truthseekers really sell the idea of a forward roaming and self sufficient strike force.
Warscroll for Xandire’s Truthseekers
Blake: Xandire definitely has some interesting play off its warscroll. The thing that jumps out immediately to me is the ability to flip a token an enemy is on. The utilization of something like that is huge. It can flip a token to prevent it from being delved. It can make it where an enemy isn’t on an objective at a critical moment for scoring. It could flip cover for future attacks. It could flip to cover, you overrun onto the objective, and now you’re in cover without taking the stagger. I love this ability.
The “on death” abilities got stronger for two fighters. Xandire’s heal is quite nice, giving a potential “heal 2” moment when she dies. Dhoraz gives two pushes, which is always useful for endless amounts of utility. Luxa is a bit underwhelming, but a second shot still isn’t a bad thing. Losing her “shoot again on kill” is a decent loss for the warband from previous edition.
Inspire mechanics are not bad at all. It rewards you pretty handily for losing a fighter. I think you seek to play the game uninspired, and reap the big reward when someone dies.
Taros is a great model. His ability on warscroll is pretty situational, but useful when it happens. Re-rolls are always nice.
The “minus one dice to attacks” ability could be game changing in some match-ups. A lot of warbands rely on early accuracy to get rolling, and taking that away for free feels good.
Overall, I rate the warscroll fairly high. It isn’t the strongest I’ve seen this release, but it gives some great tools of versatility to play the game with.
Jake: The inspire condition for the Truthseekers is fully out of your control, but it’s not as bad as that sounds. In the vast majority of games, you’re going to get attacked and lose a fighter at some point. If you’re not, you’re probably in a good spot so who cares if you inspire them or not. And while inspiring is obviously nice, your fighters have perfectly serviceable stats uninspired.
Taros gets his own unique ability with Raptor’s Eye which amusingly also grants re-rolls to himself if he’s attacking a valid target. It won’t be something you trigger every game, but often the stakes are high when you’re trying to dislodge an enemy fighter from a feature token and this helps in those clutch cases. Since it calls out “feature token” and not “treasure token” it can also be used to assist with clearing enemies off of the new Aqua Ghyranis tokens.
The token flipping from Seeker’s Strike that Blake talked about earlier is really cool because it’s such a unique mechanic. All the uses he called out are great and making the most of this is going to require being familiar with the various feature token based objectives. Some require delving treasure tokens specifically, so if you can flip the treasure away before your opponent can delve it that’ll be disruptive. Ditto for surge objectives that require enemy fighters to be holding a treasure token after your action – if you flip it to cover, they’ll have to manually delve it back up to treasure and wait another whole turn cycle for the chance to score.
Xandire’s one-use ability, Blaze of Light, is just a flat out useful tool to have. Reducing enemy fighter accuracy will always come in handy regardless of how you or your opponent are playing the game. I especially like how it’s just a blanket “all enemy fighters” effect so you don’t even have to pick a specific one to debuff.
Each of the fighters also have a special effect that kicks off when they die. Xandire herself has Blazing Purity to do a clutch double heal, either spread out among two fighters or dumping both into a single fighter. The opponent can try to play around this by focusing Xandire down first while leaving your other fighters undamaged, so do what you can to not throw Xandire away too early.
Dhoraz has Blazing Force for his parting gift which is a generically powerful double push – again, either spread out among two of your fighters or pushing a single fighter two hexes. Pushes are one of the strongest effects in Underworlds so it’s no surprise that this rules. Dhoraz is also likely to have a big target on his head due to how hard he hits.
The last ability, Blazing Reprisal, is the least impactful. But as Blake pointed out, it’s still an extra shot. The uninspired bow shot has a decent chance of hitting, but if Luxa gets a parting shot off after inspired it’s incredibly accurate.
I think the fact that your two melee fighters, who also threaten dealing the most damage, have the strongest death effects is a fortunate bit of design. They’re likely going to be the ones put in the crossfire earliest and thus be in the most danger, so you’re likely to get their effects first. Also remember that Taros is eligible for either the heals or pushes in those few cases where the bird is your best target for them.
Fighters of Xandire’s Truthseekers
Blake: Xandire’s fighter card is solid. Three hammers on uninspired attack for 2 damage is one of the most accurate in the game. You can start off the game delivering reasonably certain 2 damage swings. Five health is great for survivability. One shield is expected uninspired. I am left wanting on the inspired side. She does get cleave, which can be absolutely critical in some match ups. I really wish she got a second defense die. A comparable fighter would be Ironsoul. Between the three fighters, I think all of them having one defense die is a major weakness of this warband.
Jake: I’ll just echo what Blake said. The price that the warband pays for having Taros on the payroll seems to be getting stuck with a single defense dice when inspired. At least the Stormcast are all on shield instead of dodge.
Blake: Dhoraz, like his weapon, is a giant hammer. Uninspired 3 damage is very nice, and 2 hammers is decently reliable. Pair this way accuracy buffs early, and he is wrecking what he touches. He inspires to 3 hammer, which gives him a very accurate 3 damage swing. He gets stagger weapon ability, which is okay. It depends on the meta, but in a world of delving, you may not see a huge upside to this. His defense dice again is a concern.
Jake: Having access to a baseline 3 damage fighter is great. You can juice him up with grievous or enhance accuracy via cleave/ensnare/brutal without sacrificing his bonking potential. I agree that the stagger runemark is probably my least favorite one to see, but I think his profile would still be a good one even if it wasn’t there so I’m treating it purely as an incidental bonus.
Blake: Luxa is a bit of a let down for those who played with her in first edition. The loss of “shoot again” after killing a model changes the warband a bit from a style perspective. She does have a 2 hammer range 3 shot, which is very valuable for pace of game and preserving activations. She inspires to 3 hammers on her shot, which is very nice for accurate across board pings. Her melee attack is pretty bad. As inaccurate as they come, but trade off being 2 damage. Weakness is again defense dice, but I think it’s pretty standard for a ranged type character.
Jake: Her melee attack is surprisingly inaccurate, especially compared to some of the other archer fighters in similar warbands. Her bow shot, particularly when inspired, does make up for it by being incredibly accurate though.
Blake: Taros is the bonus card, and likely the reasoning behind no 2 defense Stormcast. Their card is what you’d expect from a pet style character. Two sword that inspires to 3 sword, one damage attack. Two dodge and 2 health is similar to a goblin profile. I don’t expect them to live long, but if they do, they give utility for support/warscroll ability/objective play.
Jake: The decision to make Taros a 1 bounty fighter instead of a 0 bounty fighter is interesting. Sotek’s Venomites from the Jaws of Itzl can often stick around for a while because the opponent isn’t rewarded for killing them, and in fact by leaving them on the board it makes it harder for the lizards to leverage the charged out rule. Taros on the other hand, is a very conveniently packaged tidbit of glory that can help the opponent get their plan rolling so I also don’t expect to see this fighter last too long in most games.
Musings on Xandire’s Truthseekers
Jake: I think one of the most ready comparisons is between Xandire’s Truthseekers and The Emberwatch. In exchange for losing out on globally equipped ranged attacks and a second save dice, the Truthseekers pick up a bird, a baseline 3 damage beast, and a truly unique token flipping mechanic. Both of these Stormcast bands are classified as Flex, but I feel like with their unique tools that the Truthseekers get a little more out of focusing on feature tokens. Between just having another body to hold/delve the tokens, they also get incentives for fighting around or on tokens and a touch more defensive staying power between the enemy accuracy reduction and their healing. Taros is also fast as heck and flies, so if the enemy Aqua Ghyranis token is left unguarded, it can quickly be claimed with a feathery flap.
The Shadeborn
The Shadeborn were some of the first models I saw when I was getting into the game a few years ago that really caught my eye and made me realize the sculpts in Underworlds are pretty damn cool. They had some neat mechanics that were unfortunately tied into their initial season’s mechanic which meant when it rotated away, they were left high-and-dry so getting a revamped release in Spitewood is exciting for me. This time around, these four fighters are described as a Strike warband.
Warscroll for The Shadeborn
Straight away, we see that these elves (aelves? aeioulves?) want to be attacking just from their inspiration mechanic. A few things that are nice here – the attack doesn’t have to hit, so even if you miss an attack against a damaged enemy your fighter will still inspire. Additionally, there’s nothing restricting where that initial damage comes from so feel free to load up on pings. If you’re fighting against an enemy warband that is almost entirely 2 health fighters, you might have some issues inspiring all your fighters, so prioritize who you want to level up and plan accordingly.
Shademark is going to be vital in keeping your low defense fighters alive. Looking ahead briefly, you have a single fighter on 2 dodge and three fighters on only 1 dodge. This is far from impressive given how they’re mostly close range fighters who want to be making attacks. Getting a “free” re-roll on your saves makes cover even more important than it already is, and also rewards you for playing aggressively and invading the opponent’s territory as soon as possible.
Gloomweb Hex further pushes the aggressive nature of these fighters by helping ensure a the enemy is less likely to avoid getting smacked. It’s a blanket effect, so every enemy on the board within 1 hex of a feature token will be affected. This means your opponent is in a tricky position if they have multiple affected fighters because they can’t play around it with Sidestep or similar abilities. The amount of hexes this covers is also pretty huge now that we have Aqua Ghyranis tokens and there are seven feature tokens on every board. That’s 41 hexes at the very least if the Aqua Ghyranis tokens are placed adjacent to treasure tokens.
Dark Lamprey is a great setup for getting one of your fighters inspired. This ability’s range of 3 is a fair bit less than any of your fighters’ individual threat ranges, so you’ll have to be a little closer than you’d probably like to fire it off to get the inspire chain going, but it does a lot of lifting in terms of getting your fighters inspired while also helping kill off the enemy.
Impenetrable Darkness is the coolest effect on this warscroll. Once used, your entire warband counts as being in cover for the rest of the entire round. This is great for boosting their fragile saves by adding another successful side to the dice and giving them a re-roll thanks to Shademark, but it also sets you up perfectly for…
… Shadow Ambush. I take it back, this is the coolest effect on the warscroll. Being able to jump from a cover token (even a fake one thanks to Impenetrable Darkness) to any edge hex is some solid maneuverability on a warband that already is faster than average. It also means that until this ability is used, any enemy fighter within one hex of an edge hex is in danger of being charged no matter where they are on the board. The only thing I dislike about Shadow Ambush is how it can only be used once per game. I feel like being once per round wouldn’t be a problem and it would really play into this warband’s flavor and mechanics.
Fighters of The Shadeborn
Slythael is your leader and best fighter of the bunch, which isn’t going to come as a surprise probably. Like all her fellow fighters, she has an above average movement speed but unlike the rest of them, she can also fly. Also setting her apart is her 2 dodge, a characteristic that the rest of the warband can only look on with jealousy.
Slythael’s only sporting a single attack option but it’s certainly no slouch. She took one look at the generic “leader stick” of the past and said it wasn’t good enough. Having extra range, solid accuracy (which improves once inspired), and 2 damage is fantastic before even getting to the cleave and ensnare that she starts with. No matter who she is going after, Slythael is going to be quite accurate.
Drusylla isn’t as showy as her boss, but she can get things done. Unfortunately, she’s the first of the single dodge fighters and that trend continues from here, but provided she can stay in cover and/or be in enemy territory, it’s not quite as bad as it looks. It’s still bad, but not quite as bad.
Her offensive profile shares the same range as Slythael which is quite helpful, but she’s not going to be nearly as accurate since she looses out on cleave and ensnare while also being stuck on 3 swords even when inspired. Fortunately, she picks up grievous once her card flips, so while she isn’t landing as many attacks as her leader, she’s going to be hitting harder. She’s a prime candidate for some attack re-roll tech.
Defensively, there’s nothing new here. Offensively, Sylarc continues the trend of having attacks that have some range to them. It’s unfortunately also limited to 3 swords like Drusylla and is only a single damage, but the extra range can come in handy – particularly to set up an initial damage to chain some future inspires. In melee, he’s no slouch either, so unlike some archers he can still get in close and bash heads when the need arises.
The final fighter is Valyssa, and is the only one of the bunch worth a single bounty. Unlike a lot of other 4 fighter warbands, she’s on 4 health instead of 3 which brings the total health pool for this warband to 16.
These elves must like bladed weapons because she’s also sporting a 3 sword attack. Once inspired, she diversifies a little and picks up critical grievous on that first attack and a secondary attack that will be more accurate specifically against shield save enemies for the tradeoff of less damage.
Musings on The Shadeborn
Every fighter in this warband hits for at least 2 with half of them at least threatening the chance of 3 damage. That’s a lot when you factor in their mobility, guaranteed ping, and reduction in enemy saves. They’re quite offensive while having very little defense.
Leaning in to their offensive potential with one or two strike decks makes perfect sense to me. Probably not Hunting Grounds, though – they want to get into enemy territory ASAP so that’s not an overlapping gameplan. Blazing Assault is just good, Raging Slayers can help with all these sword attacks in being more accurate, and Reckless Fury has some nice objectives that overlap your plan while offering ways to put charge tokens on the enemy to hold them still.
Pillage & Plunder is, as always, a viable option but it has the bonus of ensuring the board is covered in more cover tokens than treasures. I’m not sure their baseline accuracy is high enough for me to want to try Realmstone Raiders (nor am I personally fond of all the bookkeeping that deck requires). The pings from both Countdown to Cataclysm and Wrack & Ruin can serve double duty in setting up inspires and just flat out dealing more damage, plus both offer really solid defensive cards to keep your fighters kicking around longer.
The Starblood Stalkers
This Take and Hold warband are the OG lizardmen of Underworlds. In their previous iteration, they were a warband with plenty of movement related shenanigans backed up by the muscle of Klaq-Trok. They’ve consistently been fan favorites both because of their great sculpts and solid gameplay. Does Spitewood improve on an already solid past?
Warscroll for The Starblood Stalkers
It’s always convenient when the warscroll tells you exactly what the warband wants to do, and the inspire condition for the Starblood Stalkers does just that. Hold three treasure tokens after a power step and your entire warband inspires. There’s no more separate criteria for Klaq-Trok – he’s truly one of the gang now. The timing is important to note because not only can you use effects in the power step to shove your fighters onto treasure tokens, but it’s also after the opportunity to delve so it’s possible to flip a cover hex back over to the treasure side before this is checked. Of course, your opponent also has an opportunity to use effects like Confusion to yank your fighters off of a token…
Skink Agility is yet another save re-roll ability for an order warband that keys off of where your fighter is standing. This time, it’s only for your skinks (aka everyone but Klaq-Troq), only when they’re in your own territory, only against melee attacks, and only if they don’t have a charge token. There are a lot of restrictions but it’s still a really solid offering. Your skinks probably aren’t doing a ton of charging early on anyway, but this is even more incentive to avoid it. The save profiles for this warband are rather varied, but only one of your fighters is sitting on a single dodge while uninspired – the rest are all rocking saves that are better than that.
The Diviner is a core ability that your leader, Kixi-Taka, has to use. The flexibility here is solid and you can even use it once each round. Flipping tokens back over to the treasure side can be helpful if your opponent is trying to slow you down with delving – it means you can flip one in your activation, then delve another one that a different fighter is standing on. You can also use it to prevent enemy scoring by identifying what objectives they’re likely playing or use it to interfere with warbands like Blood of the Bull who specifically require delving a treasure, not just any feature hex. If you don’t need to mess around with tokens, there’s always the very solid option of just doing 1 damage. This is guaranteed with no dice dictating whether it works or not, nor does it have a rider about the target not being vulnerable. Overall a tremendous ability.
The last three abilities are all Asterisms and share some rules. Each of these abilities can only be used once per game. You choose in your power step whether you want to use one, and if you do it will last until either the end of the round or until another Asterism is used by any player. If you are able to identify early in the round which effect will be the most useful, you’ll be able to guarantee the most activations while empowered by an Asterism. Considering these effects are hugely powerful you’ll want to try to do this for sure. There’s also the weird twist that in a mirror match, they fade when either player uses an Asterism ability.
The Bulwark Celestial prevents your fighters from being driven back. A phenomenal ability when your goal is to hold any kind of feature tokens for big fat end phase scoring.
The Great Drake just flat out gives all of your melee attacks for every fighter +1 dice. While most of your fighters won’t be able to compare to dedicated aggro warband fighters, you do have multiple who hit for 2 damage and the big beefy lizard hits for 3. There’s also nothing in here that restricts it from being used on weapon upgrades.
The Hunter’s Steed is the final Asterism and it’s a flat +1 move to your entire warband. The average speed is already “fast” and most of your fighters jump up to “quite fast” when inspired so this gives crazy reach to be able to run out and snag remote tokens.
Fighters of The Starblood Stalkers
Kixi-Taka is tied with Klaq-Trok for having the highest health in the warband at 4 – everyone else is a measly 2. Your leader is at least sporting 2 dodge and has a surprisingly potent set of attacks for a little skink wizard. The melee profile is something many dedicated fighters in other warbands would drool over and as if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a ranged 3 profile if someone is just a little bit further away but you still want to hit them.
Weirdly, Kixi-Taka has absolutely no change when inspired. Not even a minor one. Odd.
Klaq-Trok is where all of this warband’s muscle resides. He’s not quite a Kro-Jax from Jaws of Itzl, but he’s doing his best impression and all the little skinks think he’s just the coolest. Sharing the same 4 health as the leader, Klaq-Trok gets surprisingly tough once inspired and on 2 shields.
The weapon profile lacks the range that Kixi-Taka has, but what it lacks in reach it delivers in damage. It’s perfectly fine to start with and when inspired, the accuracy receives a huge boost both from the extra dice and cleave. Klaq-Trok is what you’re going to use to protect the rest of the warband and keep the enemy from walking all over the 2 health ding dongs.
Speaking of 2 health ding dongs, Huachi is up. Despite having such low health, the save value here really does a lot to keep the skink alive–especially once factoring in those re-rolls–before your warband inspires. Like all the skinks other than your leader, Huachi also gets faster upon inspiring.
Even though they’re just a little guy, Huachi can punch above their weight class and packs a ranged attack so they can still project a little bit of threat while standing on a treasure token.
Xepik is another shield toting skink so their defensive profile mirrors Huachi’s.
Offensively, Xepik is hardly a threat to anything until inspired – at that point, this becomes yet another model that can hit for 2 damage, even if it won’t be terribly accurate.
The first of the skinks who chooses to forego a shield, Tok is downgraded to dodge instead of shield for saves.
However, that means he has a club in one hand and a blowgun in the other. Tok is even less accurate than Xepik, but it’s possible through The Great Drake, flanks/surrounds, or other power card support to help this inaccuracy and deliver that 2 damage up close. Alternatively, you have another fighter to stand on treasures and take pot shots.
This freaking weirdo is back and retains some slight weirdo vibes by being a 0 bounty fighter. Otapatl starts on 2 dodge and jumps up to 3 when inspired, which is annoying enough that your opponent is going to want to avoid it rather than try to kill it.
Neither of this chameleon’s attacks are anything to write home about in terms of accuracy or damage, but simply having the option for a fourth ranged 3 attack provides solid flexibility for the warband.
Musings on The Starblood Stalkers
I sure regret not having my Starblood Stalkers painted yet. Despite there only being a single dedicated Take and Hold deck (GW! The people yearn to stand on tokens!), this warband feels up to the task. Between fighter profiles that look solid but not overpowered and a warscroll that has flexibility and perfect tools for the job, I think the Starblood Stalkers can help re-introduce a popular playstyle that has fallen by the wayside in Embergard.
The obvious place to start is with Emberstone Sentinels, but keep in mind that a lot of objectives in this deck actually want you to be in enemy territory to score them. You’ll still retain your save re-rolls of fighters hanging out in your territory, but you’ll have to put more in danger with this deck.
Countdown to Cataclysm has a smattering of treasure holding along with generically useful tools. Pillage & Plunder is just as good with this warband as it is with most and you even have some added tools to help flip feature tokens from a distance with your leader. The majority of your fighters start the game out tempered if you’re playing Edge of the Knife and since you have so much access to 2 damage attacks, you can also temper enemy fighters fairly well for Trial of the Tempered.
Elathain’s Soulraid
Duinclaw makes a triumphant return to the new edition of Underworlds! I guess there are also other models in this five fighter Mastery warband, but we all know who the true leader is. Cyreni has been around for a year, but now the original moist elf warband has returned. Can they dethrone the Razors for top water-dog?
Warscroll for Elathain’s Soulraid
The tidal themed inspire is still present with the Soulraid. They all start uninspired, spend the second round inspired, then uninspire again in the third round. This means your warband is at peak efficiency for the middle four turns – weather the storm of the early game and do your best to take advantage of your position of strength before ebbing back into the baseline uninspired stats.
Tides of Death matches the same ebb-and-flow as their inspire and provides a trio of different benefits based on what round it is. In the first round, all enemy fighters will be punished by taking stagger tokens after attacking your fighters. This conveniently sets them up for a more reliable counter attack which is appreciated because you’ll be on your fighters’ uninspired profiles.
In the second round, your warband will have +1 move. Your two minions pick up a point of move while inspired and this stacks with it, meaning your entire warband jumps up to 5 move during the inspired round.
In the final round when your fighters drop back to their uninspired stats, all of your fighters will gain grapple. This is a fairly niche ability but given that your entire warband (or what’s left of them at least) will have access to it, you can use it to shove the enemy around in ways that help set up future attacks or help score objectives.
Riptide Harpoon is a Tammael specific ability that’s always in effect and simply gives +1 attack dice whenever Tammael charges and uses his weapon. It won’t work on upgrades, but honestly Tammael’s melee weapon is pretty solid so that’s not a big loss. Keep in mind you can’t get the benefit of this on his ranged attack.
Soul Harvest is one way you can take advantage of Riptide Harpoon more than once in a round. Being able to raise Tammael, your dedicated missile, any time your leader slays an enemy fighter is a big swing in board presence. Tammael has more substantial stats than your the typical raise eligible fighter and being able to leverage him will aid your game plan, whatever it is. Weakening enemies and setting them up for a kill by Elathain to bring back Tammael is worth a little work.
Ethersea Predators ties into your two minions, Duinclaw the crab and Spinefin the fish. The maneuverability that this grants is not to be understated. When one of your elves does any core ability, you can choose to push both of the minions 1 hex closer to that elf. That’s move, attack, charge, guard, or any of the variety of extra core abilities granted from upgrades. The major limitation is that the pushes have to be closer to the fighter performing the action and it has to be both of the minions when you choose it – can’t leave one behind while moving the other.
Phantasmal Forms makes Fuirann substantially more durable than their profile would normally indicate. Having a permanent reduction in damage taken and never able to be driven back is phenomenal for parking Fuirann somewhere for scoring or just denying the opponent access to a token. The fact that this is just always in effect does wonders for the survivability of this fighter.
Fighters of Elathain’s Soulraid
Elathain is fairly durable for being an elf between his 4 health and being on shield saves. Like all the elves in the warband, he’s on 4 move which doesn’t technically change when inspired but the Tides of Death warscroll ability is granting everyone +1 move during the second round anyway so it kind of does.
A very accurate melee attack ensures that Elathain is likely to hit when you set up killing blows to raise Tammael, or just reliably bonk the enemy for 2 damage. The ranged attack is more questionable in rounds one and three due to the low accuracy, but at least in the second round it becomes a little more reliable, especially if going after an enemy on dodge saves.
All around, a solid leader with high speed and reliable accuracy.
Similar to Elathain, Fuirann is on 4 move and 4 health, but saves on 2 dodge instead of shields. As mentioned in Phantasmal Forms, the durability of this fighter is higher than this appears. Unless Fuirann takes four individual hits for 1 damage or a single 5 damage hit, the damage reduction will add at least a few effective health.
Offensively, Fuirann’s uninspired attack is fine but can afford to have assistance from flanking minions or other accuracy boosts. Once inspired, they’re on the much more reliable 3 hammers attack which will hit quite often.
The last elf of the group, Tammael also has the worst defense by a small margin. Not being on shields, not starting with 2 save dice, and not having the potent Phantasmal Forms means Tammael will be the easiest fighter for the enemy to take out… but he’s also the only one that can be raised, so there’s some disincentive for attacks to focus on this fighter.
Offensively, the thrall is not one to be dismissed. This melee profile is flexible and reliable, and getting the extra attack dice on the charge bumps it up to one of the better uninspired attacks that fighters have access to. Add in the flexibility of a decent ranged attack and the fact that both profiles pick up ensnare once inspired and Tammael is going to force the opponent to deal with them or get stabbed repeatedly.
Crab! Technically he and Spinefin are the slowest fighters of the group, but after you factor in how often they’re going to get pushed around they can cover a substantial amount of board. A lower health total is protected by the hardy 2 shield save profile, so Duinclaw should be able to shrug off a few attacks headed his way.
The 2 sword attack profile isn’t something I want to rely on ever, but it does deal 2 damage if you can land it. Once inspired, those claws become much better at opening cans, even if those cans are disguised as Stormcast or orcs.
Spinefin is back… sort of. Instead of being a bizarre token/fighter thing that pops up all over the board, Spinefin is just a normal fighter this time around. There’s still no reward for killing the fish since it has 0 bounty, so the enemy dedicating a turn to taking it out will still feel bad for them even if it won’t prove to be very difficult to do with these defensive stats. Oh yeah, Spinefin flies, too!
Spinefin’s attack certainly is there. I would not want to rely on it nor be in a position where I’m even making attacks with the fish based on how much better the other fighters can do at that role. Spinefin’s strength will be in scooching around the board, blocking off enemy access, holding/deny tokens, and providing flanked/surrounded for your other fighters.
Musings on Elathain’s Soulraid
Between Tammael being a raise target and Fuirann’s enhanced durability and immunity to drive back, this warband has some solid fighters that opponents will not be enthusiastic about targeting. The minions’ enhanced maneuverability can either be used to secure tokens or just cuddle up to the elves and offer support. You can take advantage of this resiliency and maneuverability by going for a feature token focused game plan, or probably more ideally a balanced counter punch approach where you can hold a few tokens for scoring purposes and then hit back when the opponent tries to interact.
A variety of decks can assist with this strategy, but the new Hunting Grounds is primed for it. I think you need to pair it with something with nice, passive scoring to bait the enemy into coming to you – Countdown to Cataclysm, Emberstone Sentinels, Pillage & Plunder, or Wrack & Ruin could all have some legs as partners for the new strike deck.
Or just throw caution to the wind and go forth to stab at your enemies. That’s always fun.
Final Thoughts
The Order warbands all feel pretty solid. There are two fairly flexible ones with Xandire and Elathain where you can take them in multiple directions, as well as some fairly signposted options with Shadeborn aggro and Starblood Stalker token holding. There’s nothing preventing you from getting wild and switching things up, of course!
I’m going to need to dust off my painting supplies and get to work on these warbands because despite owning them all for years at this point, I haven’t painted them yet. I think I’ll start with Shadeborn… or maybe the Starblood Stalkers… but Xandire looks fun as well, so maybe them… or crab.
And with the coverage of those final four warbands down, that brings Goonhammer’s Spitewood coverage to a close. If you skipped straight to this one, or want to get another look at any of the new stuff to start brewing on your own, check out the other entries in our coverage at the top of this page.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website, and more.
