It’s an exciting time to be a Warcry player. With absolutely no warning whatsoever, Games Workshop came in and added allegiance abilities to the entire game in the new Briar and Bone boxed set. We’re calling them “battle traits,” and will be breaking down how each of them works. Many thanks to GW for sending us an advanced copy of Briar and Bone for review.
If each fighter in your warband shares a Faction and/or Grand Alliance runemark, you get to pick the battle trait corresponding to that runemark, and it effects all your fighters. So do you have allies in your warband? If so, use the Grand Alliance battle trait. Are all your fighters from the same faction? You can use your faction battle trait or the GA battle trait.
We’re starting with the 8 factions in the Death Grand Alliance. Death changed quite a bit 3 months ago when the points rebalance shifted the usefulness of some of their hyper-efficient minions, and I think players are still tinkering and figuring out the ways the grand alliance is supposed to function. The current tournament hotness is to put Wielder of the Blade (a unique nighthaunt leader with respectable damage and a plethora of abilities) in every warband. Will the faction battle traits be enough to change that? Does it even matter?
These might be so fun to build around that people don’t care if they’re missing out on a broken ally, and personally, I think anything that tempts folks away from “auto-includes” is a big positive. In general the rules behind these battle traits encourage you to ignore the power of soup lists, so hopefully they’ll be a fun layer to the game that encourages players to explore new playstyles in a fun way. Here at Goonhammer we’ll be combing through each and every one, and adding thoughts from our resident Warcry players.
Now let’s jump into the battle traits themselves:
Death – Deathless Minions
Once per battle round, count the first critical hit from a ranged attack action that targets a friendly fighter with this battle trait that has the MINION runemark as a hit instead.
TheSaltySea: I find this one a bit curious, since only about half of the factions in Death have minions. That said Soublight Gravelords, Nighthaunt, and Flesh Eater Courts are all pretty jazzed about this. The promise of a relevant GA battle trait is that normal soup lists can use it, and this will come up at the top tables of Warcry events quite a bit. Heavy shooting isn’t often played in casual fun games in my experience, but there are a few gunline factions in competitive tournaments, and they’re a major pillar of the top meta. Knowing an entire grand alliance can put a significant roadblock in your way every round likely won’t dissuade folks from the playstyle, but it might swing a game or two. I think the biggest winners here are Grave Guard, who at 10 wounds go from dying to Crit, Hit, Hit, from a Slann Starmaster to surviving on 1 health.
Thundercloud: It will be interesting to see how the meta shakes up after traits are added, as a lot of good shooting is allied into warbands (Quiet Pock, Hrothgor, etc) and traits discourage that. However, given the Soulblight Gravelords trait is buffing Thirst for Blood, if you aren’t taking vampires in your warband it’s a useful alternative. There are a number of traits which slightly improve defence against shooting, so this is likely part of an attempt to influence the meta away from ‘big gunz’ being included in a lot of warbands, especially order ones, and dominating the game.
Askurgan Trueblades – Worthy Draught
After an enemy fighter with the HERO runemark and/or that has a wounds characteristic of 20 or greater has been taken down by a melee attack action made by a friendly fighter with this battle trait, remove D6 damage points allocated to that friendly fighter.
TheSaltySea: It’s cool, it’s flavorful, I like it. Listen, I’m going to say this a lot in this series, but I don’t think it’s a crime for some of these to be weak. It would have been nice to see Askurgan get a stronger than average battle trait, but it’s not like this does nothing. Because of renown giving everyone a free counter, this is probably stronger in narrative play, if that matters to folks.
Thundercloud: I agree, it’s characterful but not super powerful, and much more effective fighting damage sponges like Gorger Mawpack, who give Trueblades trouble.
Flesh Eater Courts – Form a Lance
Add 1 to the Move characteristic of friendly fighters with this battle trait that were within 1” of two or more other friendly fighters with this battle trait at the start of their activation. Add 1 to the Strength characteristic of melee attack actions made by friendly fighters with this battle trait while they are within 1’ of two or more friendly fighters with this battle trait.
TheSaltySea: I think that triggering this trait consistently in a way that actually helps in-battle will be quite challenging (aside from the free one you get when you leave deployment), but it’s fun and fluffy and might be a cool sidequest to have during games.
Thundercloud: I think this buffs ghoul packs nicely, and packs of ghoul chaff with a couple of buffing pieces are a fairly common way of playing FEC.
Nighthaunt – Wave of Terror
Add 1 to the Strength characteristics of melee attack actions made by friendly fighters with this battle trait if they made a move action this activation.
TheSaltySea: I love this for them. The last metawatch gave NH some real tools, and this expands them. The combo with this and Frightful Touch (a ghostly ability that turns hits into crits for 1 attack only) is a big deal that Nighthaunt players will love. NH already was happy to go with no allies, and if I interpret the rules right you basically get to choose between this and the GA trait based on whether your opponent is playing a gunline or not.
Thundercloud: One of the more straightforward just good traits, effectively giving all your models a charging bonus. I’d say to take it every time because NH have a lot of strength 3 models that really benefit from being strength 4 (spirit host for example) and combo-ing this with Frightful Touch.
Ossiarch Bonereapers – Ranks Unbroken by Dissent
If a friendly fighter with this battle trait uses an ability that requires the OSSIARCH BONEREAPERS runemark and has a range, add 1” to the range of that ability.
Thundercloud: This boosts a number of abilities to huge pie plates. Form Shieldwall becomes 4”, The Boneshaper’s Art heals D3 for models within 7” (so an even bigger chunk of the table), and Soulreaper Scythe becomes a gigantic 4” bubble. It’s worth thinking about when picking your models and what abilities are even better because of it.
TheSaltySea: Ossiarch Bonereapers have no minions, so they really needed something useful, and like Thundercloud showed, so much of their ability slate is range-locked. This is going to make Ossiarch Bonereapers a bit easier to play, which might not sound like much, but should lower your blood pressure significantly while you battle for the whims of Nagash. I’m especially happy for Mortisan Ossifector players, who had the issue before of not being able to keep up with the Morghasts that combo with their leader. That will still be an issue, but every inch counts.
Pyregheists – Pyres of Victory
At the end of each battle round, each player whose warband has this battle trait can roll a dice for each friendly Pyre token on the battlefield. For each roll of 3+, add one wild dice to that player’s saved wild dice.
Thundercloud: Turns out Pyre tokens are super useful, and not just for messing with enemies on objectives. This plays into thematically what the warband wants to do, set people on fire, and makes Torchwraiths + Pyrerobbers Curse pretty mandatory, as every token you create will sit there for the rest of the game with a chance to generate wild dice so you have even more abilities to play with.
TheSaltySea: When the gheists came out, pyre tokens seemed a little underpowered, but now there’s a real reward to focusing on them. If you can make two Pyre tokens by the end of round 2, you might bury your opponent in wild dice, powering out big Soulblazes with ease in the later rounds.
Royal Beastflayers – The Hounds Bay
After an enemy fighter has been taken down by a melee attack action made by a friendly fighter with this battle trait that has the BEAST runemark, pick another fighter in your warband. That fighter can make a bonus move action of up to 3”.
MasterSlowPoke: The Beastflayers are a very positioning-dependent warband, so free movement is great. Smart ordering of your actions could let this trigger in order to get one more unit in position for a brutal application of Pack Tactics. Your only real choice for BEAST models are Offal Hounds, but at least they’re among the more hard hitting models in the faction. They can also be surprisingly agile with Clambering Horrors, allowing them to hit a weakened model that fell back to a place your opponent thought was safe. It should be noted that the Royal Beastflayers lack any MINION models, so if you choose to forgo any Offal Hounds, you’d want to ally in some minions to have any battle trait at all with the standard Death choice.
Thundercloud: Your Offal Hounds are your beat sticks, so this is really just handing out some free movement whenever they kill something, and free movement is always useful for getting models into combat, getting them onto objectives, etc. You can also use this on other Offal Hounds, so you can sit there chomping chaff and using the free moves to get your other Offal Hounds chomping chaff, etc etc.
TheSaltySea: I’m a bit skeptical of Offal Hounds, generally, but this is fun and fluffy and I love the enthusiasm. Not every trait has to change tournament builds and this does add some much needed internal balance for folks who want to explore their options.
Soulblight Gravelords – Sanguine Glory
Each time a friendly fighter with this battle trait uses the “Thirst for Blood” ability, if that value of that ability is 1 or 2, increase the value of that ability to 3.
Thundercloud: Useful if you’ve taken Vampires as it makes a low Triple useful for healing them, but if you’ve gone with a board control Thriller list (all skeletons and zombies to control objectives) then think about the standard Death trait.
TheSaltySea: I agree that the universal GA ability is quite good for Soulblight, so I would focus on that as well. I love the idea of encouraging a vampire-heavy build, but I’m not sure if this achieves that goal.
Teratic Cohort – Predatory Outriders
Before deployment, you can pick a friendly battle group that is not in reserve. Fighters from that battle group can deploy within 6” of their deployment point, but if they do so, must be deployed more than 6” from each enemy fighter.
Thundercloud: Really useful to give multiple models an extra 3” towards where they need to be, especially on a deployment where you are far away from objectives.
TheSaltySea: I’ve never seen Teratic Cohort in action, but aside from their leader I was surprised to see they’re a bit slow for a team with so many wings and four-legged creatures. Being able to ignore such a fundamental movement limitation probably changes that dynamic. The Harpies and the Cykloptian with 2” reach can still drop in and get an attack in if you spend a double for Rush. Does that make them good? That remains to be seen, but I hope to see folks giving it a try.
We’re excited to see what the community does with their new Battle Tactics. This is likely to shake up the meta pretty significantly – dissuading some soup lists, beefing up some forgotten warbands, and generally expanding what each fighter can do. We will be covering the rest of the Grand Alliances, check back as we cover the rest!
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