Age of Sigmar: Scions & Shadowstalker Rules Preview
The two new Warbands for Warcry are getting the full Warhammer: Age of Sigmar treatment with rules to bring them to the big (table)top!
Warcry: Catacombs is bringing the fire and the shadow with two Warbands. Today, we get our first look at the rules in Age of Sigmar for the Shadow Aelves of the Khainite Shadowstalkers and the furious tempers of the Scions of the Flame!
Strike From The Shadows
Kicking things off we see that this unit will be a part of the Daughters of Khaine. As of right now, this is probably the best fit for the unit. There isn’t exactly a Shadow Aelves army (yet) and the Daughters are still “followers” of Khaine. Stat-wise, they aren’t super impressive but they do make up for it with some neat rules. They also have short-ranged Cursed Missiles that can add some extra damage (and mortal wounds) in the shooting phase.
Shadow Leap is their big trick. They basically get to hop around the board and can redeploy anywhere 9″ away from an enemy. That’s some impressive mobility for sure! They are also harder to hit in the fight phase due to their Harness Shadow ability. The Shadowstalkers each pack 2 attacks while the unit leader has 3 so it’s not a crazy amount of attacks. Depending on the cost of this unit, the extra mobility could be a nice bonus for the army, but honestly they aren’t anything to write home about.
Then again, if your opponent is worried about a unit of Shadowstalkers bouncing around the board then they might ignore a bigger threat from a Daughters of Khaine army – and that could cost them dearly.
Bring the Heat
The Scions of Flame are following the same path as the other Chaos Warbands from Warcry. They are part of the Slaves to Darkness army and are more Chaos Mortal followers to add to the mix. Much like the other warbands they have a similar basic stat-line. What they do have that makes them different are their Flamburst Pots which are an okay ranged attack and their extra flame-based abilities.
The Inferno Priest adds some extra consistency to the unit’s Flameburst Pots with a re-roll to hit rolls of 1s rule. The other “special” models have an extra attack or wound. Their key ability is All Shall Burn which causes those same Flameburst Pots to score two hits on unmodified to hit rolls of 6. Really, everything this unit does well revolves around those Flameburst Pots. Is that a good thing? It’s only an 8″ range attack and at that point you’re probably going to charge or get charged pretty quick. This unit is an okay harasser unit and you have to ask yourself if your Chaos Army needs it or not. It also depends on how many points this unit turns out to be.
At least the models look neat!
It’s really hard to judge how effective these units are going to be based solely on the rules. Having the points cost would be a better gauge on their usefulness. If these units are dirt cheap then I think they might be fun to squeeze in a list. But if they are too expensive then I don’t think either brings enough utility to warrant adding them in your army. The Daughters of Khaine’s battletome is one of the older books and it’s been around long enough that most of armies are fairly well established. It’s going to be difficult to find room to run the Shadowstalkers. And Slaves to Darkness has enough units (along with all the OTHER Warcry Units) that it’s going to be hard for the Scions to stand out.
But hey, at least you can use them in Warcry and they seem like a pair of fun Warbands to play in that game!
What do you think of the rules for the Scions and the Shadowstalkers for use in Age of Sigmar?
