Warhammer Underworlds - Starblood Stalkers Warband Review

Heres my first impressions of the first Seraphon warband

Let's start off with reviewing the fighter cards.

Fighter Card Review:

The good: 4 move, 2 defense, relatively accurate ranged attacks, unique action to deal  damage with no dice roll required, and a relatively easy inspire condition. Also has the SKINK keyword.

The bad: 3 wounds makes him one of the easiest Leaders to kill, and he only gains 1 dice on his Starbolt attack from inspiring.

The good: 4 wounds. Starts with a damage 3 attack. Has a great reaction to attack after any of his activations (not just when you attack - you can use Powerful Jaws even if you Move or go on Guard)

The bad: 3 move and 1 defense uninspired. Only inspires if he makes a successful attack action (random). The Jaws cannot be modified. Does not have Cleave or Ensnare so his accuracy is reliant on adding re-rolls and more Dice (thankfully this warband has ways to do that!). He is the only powerful fighter so you will be relying on the Skinks and lethal hexes to set up or follow through on Klaq-Troks plays.

The Good: 4 move and 2 defense going to 5 and 3 when inspired. Cleave and Ensnare on his attack. His attack also gives the enemy a Move token, and does 2 damage while inspired. Combined with cards that let him teleport directly onto enemy objectives he is a real nuisance. Has the Skink, Hunter, and Quarry keywords.

The Bad: Only has that ranged attack. The ranged attack requires criticals to succeed so it is inaccurate (though it can be improved with rerolls and support). Even with 3 defense when inspired he still only has 2 wounds. Does not have Skittish unlike the other Skinks.

The good: Not much. 4 move (going up to 5) and Skittish. Skink and Hunter keywords enable a lot of cards. They have melee attacks and/or ranged attacks. There's three of them, which makes the warband good at holding objectives and using Attack Action upgrades.

The bad: Weak and inaccurate attacks. 2 wounds and weak defense. Nothing really improves from inspiring.

So you have a number of weak skinks running around controlling objecties while the saurus holds the frontline. With the fighters in mind lets take a look at the cards:

Card Review

Here's how I rate cards:

S = Excellent, will be in almost every deck

A = Great, will be in many decks

B = Good, situational or meta viability

C = Okay, niche use

D = Bad, wont see play

F = Why was this even printed

Formidable Focus - At first glance this seems really difficult but between multiple cards that allow you to teleport behind enemy lines, push cards, and 4+ move you should be able to readily score this card. This is a card that is core to the playstyle of capturing objectives in enemy territory. Rating: A

Children of Azyr - It's already somewhat difficult to inspire both skinks and saurus reliably but the additional requirement of having 3 upgrades on your surviving fighters is far too difficult to justify only 2 glory. Rating: F 

Note: I have given this an F because I think this is "3 upgrades on each fighter", but if it's "3 upgrades total across all fighters" then I would bump it up to a B

Balance the Cosmic Equation - Against objective warbands like Grymwatch you can be aggressive and kill two, while against aggro warbands you can hold more objectives. Pretty easy 1 glory. This is a good Hybrid objective that can enable The Great Plan (below). Rating: S

Astromatix Alignment - Guaranteed glory if you place an objective on the edge of enemy territory and deploy Kixi-Taka in range. No dice roll required! Rating: S

Seeking the Heart - Getting all your fighters in enemy territory is too risky. I could only see this working with a deck that has multiple ways to flip/destroy objective tokens and that seems too risky against aggro warbands. Rating: C

Perfect Warrior - Killing an enemy leader without losing Klaq-Trok to a counter-attack seems unlikely. Would consider it at 2 glory, but for 1 it's not worth the risk. Rating: C

Instinctive Tactics - This warband has loads of Reactions, this is nearly a free glory. Run in every deck. Rating: S

Heralds of Annihilation - Killing an enemy leader doesn't seem to be the main goal of this warband. Not a bad card by any means but you don't want this cluttering your hand in situations where the leader is already dead, you can't reasonably kill their leader (likely because Klaq-Trok is dead), or their leader is hidden behind their warband (eg: Grymwatch). Rating: C

Will of the Slann - With all the movement and teleporting this warband is capable of doing this seems like a really easy 2 glory card to score. Rating: S

Vengeance of the Heavens - Nope, way too hard to do when you have weak fighters like Skinks. Rating: D

The Great Plan - To score this reliably I would put 2 Dual and 2 Hybrid cards, which is not that big of a deck building restriction. 3 glory to slightly tailor your deck seems like a good deal to me, but it will depend on how many good Dual/Hybrid cards exist. Rating: A

Sotek's Hunters - There are loads of Range 3 attacks in this warband, and you will probably find yourself adding more with upgrades. Rating: S

Light of the Stars - Really good if there are gambits that deal damage. Even if there are no gambits that deal damage in the meta this card can still be used as a Reaction to score cards like Instinctive Tactics (see above) Rating: B

Invisible Hunter - Teleport Otapatl at the end of the round. Seems simple, but this card has tons of depth and I love it. You can break the persist effect early with cards like Mundane Razor, or use it in the last power step of the round to instantly claim any objective that isn't being guarded. Since Otapatl is a Quarry this makes scoring Absolute Stillness a breeze! The only reason this card isn't an S is because it only effects Otapatl and he can die before you get any use from it. Rating: A

Huanchi's Device - It's a second copy of Distraction, which is good enough to run in this warband, but it also has a bonus effect. When would you ever want to let the enemy push 3 of their own fighters? When you play against another objective control warband and you get into a situation where you can force them to push multiple fighters off objectives. If you just use it as Distraction it's still a good card. Rating: A

Burst from the Shadows - Not much needs to be said about this amazing card that makes it very efficient to hold objectives, get away from enemies, etc. Rating: S

The Bulwark Celestial - The first of three Asterisms and this one seems like the most situational. If you really need a fighter to hold an objective you can just get them a guard token somehow. A good card to help with shooting warbands, but too niche to see general use. Rating: C

Tepok's Mystery - Is this worth a gambit slot in your deck to maybe slow your opponent down? This isn't a mystery, the answer is "no". Rating: D

Sotek's Venom - Give an enemy a Move token after anyone attacks them. Excellent for shutting down aggro or pushing off objectives and making sure they dont just walk back. Also a good Reaction for Instinctive Tactics.   Rating: S

Lords of Space and Time - Teleport any fighter to an unguarded objective in enemy territory. This is a powerful effect and fits perfectly with the plan of capturing enemy objectives. Rating: S

Astrolith Igniter - This would be good if it wasn't restricted to Kixi-Taka. Rating: C

Adaptive Camouflage - Strong effect but way too situational. Does nothing against melee attackers and only effects one fighter. Rating: C

The Hunter's Steed - +1 move for an entire round. This helps speed up Klaq-Trok and also gets inspired Skinks to 6 move for scoring cards like Cover Ground. Rating: A

The Great Drake - +1 Dice to Range 1 attacks for all your fighters for an entire round. This is a great boost to improve Klaq-Troks accuracy but also comes in handy once you start equipping your skinks with Attack Action upgrades like Amberbone Sword. Rating: S

Selfless Sacrifice - None of the skinks are strong enough on their own to justify equipping this card. You would need to combo it with an Attack Action upgrade but that combo doesn't seem reliable or strong enough to justify a deck slot. Rating: D

Herald of the Old Ones - With careful positioning this card allows all of your Skinks to reroll defense. Great upgrade, fits well into the defensive nature of this warband. Rating: A

Heaven-Blessed Weapon - +1 Dice to Klaq-Trok is a worthwhile upgrade already, but this also gives Knockback 1 and can even be put on some of the Skinks too. Rating: A

Cloak of Feathers - +2 Move is good, but not when it's locked to one fighter. There are better movement options out there. Rating: C

Unhesitating - +2 move is great. Gets uninspired Skinks to 6 move for Cover Ground. Can't see a reason not to include this one unless there's just a better movement card out there. Rating: A

Unfeeling Resilience - Great on Klaq-Trok who should be trying to absorb as many attacks as possible for the poor skinks. Rating: S

Supreme Predator - Normally I dislike upgrades that are restricted to one fighter, but this effect is so good it's hard to pass. Turning him into a Hunter and giving a re-roll all in one card. Rating: A

Spawning Bond - This is a good effect but how many times do you need to push one skink?  My first impression is that this seems good on paper but in practise this card will prove too difficult to use for too little benefit. I think I need to play this card a lot before judging it. Rating: B

Summary

Pros:

+ Lots of fighters to hold objectives
+ Only 6 fighters so you don't need to fill every deployment hex
+ Relatively easy inspire condition for both skinks and saurus
+ Otapatl has both cleave and ensnare, and deals 2 damage when inspired
+ Skinks can push themselves with Skittish
+ Multiple weak fighters that really want Attack Action upgrades
+ Teleport around the board
+ Many great Objective cards
+ Many great Gambit cards
+ Klaq-Trok is a powerful fighter
+ Kixi-Taka has decent accuracy on ranged attacks and can deal 1 damage guaranteed to anyone near an objective
+ Lots of Hunters

+ Start the game with a Quarry (Great for scoring cards like Absolute Stillness and Ahead of the Hunt)

Cons:
- Only one fighter with >3 wounds
- 2 health fighters give away lots of glory and Primacy
- Otapatl needs criticals to hit (can still get support though)
- A playstyle formed around holding enemy objectives with 2 wound fighters is very risky
- Hard to play properly, lots of mechanics
- Inaccurate ranged attacks, could be difficult to push enemies off objectives

Final Thoughts

I think they will be primarily focused on objective control (especially objectives in enemy territory). They lack the movement efficiency of warbands like Thorns but Klaq-Trok is a powerhouse so they can do a flex style much better than some other objective control warbands.

Kinda weird that Kixi-Taka isn't a Wizard since he looks like a Starpriest. Not a big deal since spells are mostly junk these days and his ranged attack is stronger than most wizard spell attacks because it can get support.

They have 6 fighters so they dont have to fill every slot on deployment, so unlike 7 fighter warbands youre not necessarily giving away glory/primacy at the start of every game.

Their ability to teleport around and give enemies move tokens will make them good at stopping aggro warbands. Against control/objective warbands they can play the ranged game to push them off objectives, or use cards like Huanchis Device to push them off.

Overall this seems to be a very strong warband and I think they have what it takes to be competitive with other top tier warbands like Mollog, Morgok, Thorns, Grymwatch, and Mournflight. That said, I think Thundriks Profiteers and Hrothgorns Mantrappers will prove to be a problem since they have good ranged attacks that can pick off Skinks without exposing themselves to heavy counter-attacks.