Myari's Purifiers - Warband Review
Introduction
Fighter Characteristics
Myari Lightcaller, a spellcaster steeped in arcane skill, able to wield the magic of Hysh. He is the leader of the Purifiers. He has a Movement of 4, a Save of 1 Dodge, 4 Health and a Bounty of 2. He has two weapon attack profiles. The first is a melee attack, range 2, 1 Hammer for 2 damage. The second is a ranged attack, which is range 3, 3 Swords for 1 damage. Upon inspiration, his melee attack increases to 2 Hammers and his ranged attack improves to 4 Swords. Overall, a modest boost to his accuracy for his inspiration. The single dice melee attack is quite useful for gaining the inspiration.
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| Myari Lightcaller |
Bahannar, an Alarith Stoneguard, has a Move of 3, a Save of 1 Block, 4 Health and a Bounty of 2. He has two melee weapon attack profiles. The first is range 1, 2 Hammers for 2 damage. The second, is range 2, 2 Hammers for 1 damage. Upon inspiration, his Save improves to 2 Block and his attack profiles each gain Grevious. Overall, a solid inspiration boost. This should be a fighter you actively try to inspire.
Ailenn Ailenn, the Mind's Edge is a Vanari Bladelord, has a Move of 4, a Save of 1 Block, 4 Health and a Bounty of 2. She has a single melee weapon attack of range 1, 2 Swords for 2 damage. Upon inspiration, her attack improves to 3 Hammers with Cleave. Overall, a solid accuracy boost, especially when combined with her passive warscroll ability this becomes an extremely reliable attack.
Senaela an Auralan Sentinel, has a Move of 4, a Save of 1 Dodge, 3 Health and a Bounty of 1. He has two weapon attack profiles. The first, a melee attack, is range 1, 2 Swords for 1 damage. The second, a ranged attack, is range 4, Hammers for 1 damage. Upon inspiration, his ranged attack improves to range 5 and 3 hammers. Overall, a small accuracy boost for her inspiration but when combined with her passive warscroll ability this makes for a nice, ranged attack. Senaela's poor damage output suggest this fighter should primarily be used for positional play.
How do the Purifier's inspire?
After you make an Attack roll or Save roll for a friendly fighter, if all the results were success, Inspire the fighter. Whilst this inspire condition is dice dependent, there will be multiple opportunities to attempt to inspire during a game. This might even include rolling dice to Save against a failed attack or rolling Save dice against attack that you could not possibly stop. Obviously, the less dice you roll the more likely the inspiration is to occur.
Warscroll Abilities
Aetherquartz Reserve - After a friendly fighter is deployed, give that fighter an aetherquartz token.
These aetherquartz tokens are very precious and significantly improve this warband. They should not be wasted. Each fighter has a passive ability tied to these aetherquartz tokens, which are lister below. In addition, a fighter with an Aetherquartz token can use the Heightened Senses ability.
Heightened Senses - Use this immediately after you make an Attack roll or Save roll. Discard the fighter's aetherquartz token, then reroll any dice in that Attack or Save roll.
This is an amazing ability, but it does result in the loss of the aetherquartz token. First off it can be used for both Attack and Save rolls. Secondly, it is re-roll ANY dice, not one but any number, which is very good. Personally, I will be using it almost exclusively for Save rolls, and only when they are necessary to avoid being slain. This is because aetherquartz tokens are required for the remaining warband abilities. Overall, this is still a fantastic ability, 5 out 5.
Passive Fighter Abilities
Blinding Corona - Myari's aetherquartz ability - If Myari has an aetherquartz token at the start of a turn, then Myari has +1 Save until the end of the turn. Bascially, Myari will be starting the game on a Save of 2 Dodge. Simple, effective. What is not to like? When put into context, this has the same value as a 2 Glory Upgrade, Sharp Reflexes (from Emberstone Sentinel).
Enduring as Rock - While a friendly Bahannar has an aetherquartz token, they cannot be pushed by enemy abilities. In this Flex warband, it is great to just have a fighter than can stand on a Treasure token and hold it. While this ability prevents Bahannar being pushed, there are other ways to remove him from Treasure tokens. Of the four passive fighter abilities this is the least effective, but it will still have its place in some games. However, I am far more likely to use Bahannar's aetherquartz for a Heightened Senses reroll than any other fighter.
Impeccable Aim - While a friendly Senaela has an aetherquartz token, Senaela's ranged weapons have Brutal and Ensnare. Another great little buff to this fighter, which basically increases the Senaela's chance of being successful on the attack. Also, of note, many weapon ability Upgrades only work with melee attacks. These are
Masterful Stroke - While a friendly Ailenn has an aetherquartz, when Ailenn attacks with a melee weapon, their target is flanked. This significantly increases the accuracy of Ailenn's attack, again increasing the chance of a successful attack. In context, this is the equivalent of Hidden Aid (from Blazing Assault). In addition, as Ailenn hits with Hammers
Overall, these passive abilities are excellent, especially as they potentially persist for the whole game. 4 out 5.
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| My Purifiers |
Possible Playstyle Pairings
Main Playstyle: Flex
The Purifiers have good fighter stats but would benefit from boosts to their Saves, Damage output and Health. These Upgrades can all be found within the Emberstone Sentinel deck. However, this warband is made up of 4 fighters and this will make playing Taking and Holding many Treasure tokens difficult, especially if it for the whole game.
So, while Emberstone Sentinel may provide extremely useful Power cards they need more achievable Objectives. These could come from either a Strike or a Mastery deck. My first thought is to use Objectives from Countdown to Cataclysm. It should be noted that cards like Overwhelming Force cannot be scored by the Purifiers, without Power card support, as they do not have a fighter with a 4 dice melee attack.
Blazing Assault has some very scorable Objectives, especially Surges, which the Purifiers can utilise plus some damage boosting Power cards like Twist the Knife. However, I do not believe a Strike deck should be the primary build of this warband as they are far too fragile, and Senaela cannot put out enough damage to really utilise this deck.
Conclusion
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| All ratings out of 5 (What do the stats mean?) |
The Purifiers are good warband that are reasonably fast and accurate, backed up with an excellent warscroll. There is a concern over their resilience as they lack a little in the Save department, but some careful play and position will in part negate this to a small extent. They should not, however, be used to go toe-to-toe with a Strike warband.
The Warscroll is outstanding, providing some great passive bonuses to these fighters.
I am really looking forward to playing these Aelven warriors again.
Checkout my Warhammer Underworlds for more articles.
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