Last month, Warhammer Underworld’s lead designer Dave Sanders told us all about Khagra’s Ravagers and their new Desecration mechanic. Today, he’s back to talk about the Starblood Stalkers, and how the team designed a warband seeking to stop an angry mountain from devastating the Mortal Realms.
Dave: The Starblood Stalkers have arrived in Beastgrave, intent on harnessing the mountain’s own madness to destroy it once and for all. It’s a warband with a lot of variety in it – you have a Skink Priest, a Saurus Oldblood, a Chameleon Skink, and then some skink warriors. Each has been created to fulfil a specific role appointed to them by the slann in service of their Great Plan. I’m going to highlight an ability for each fighter to reflect this.
Skinks – hold objectives
Each of the regular skinks has the Skittish reaction, which you can use after an opponent’s power step. When you use it, you can push one of Huachi, Xepic, or Tok one hex away from an enemy fighter within two hexes. A canny player can use this to put some distance between their fighters and an enemy fighter with reach, such as Vasillac the Gifted from the Dread Pageant.
You can also use it to shift a fighter onto an objective token at a time when it’s hard for your opponent to respond – for example, after your opponent’s final power step in a round. Also, if an opponent tries to surround your skinks, they may find that they’ve simply given you more options, letting you push your skinks away from one fighter in the direction of another.*
Kixi-Taka – control Beastgrave
Kixi-Taka has a unique action that you can use to flip a feature token or deal damage to an enemy fighter within one hex of a feature token. This reflects the control that Kixi-Taka exerts over Beastgrave.
It has several uses, from clearing enemy fighters off objective tokens to creating a lethal hex to help you finish a fighter off or reducing the number of objectives on the battlefield. This may seem counter-intuitive when your warband wants to hold objectives, but it actually makes it easier to score objectives like Seeking the Heart, which requires you to hold each objective in your opponent’s territory.
Otapatl – disruption
The Chameleon Skink, Otapatl, is a scout and skirmisher, sent ahead to cripple enemy warbands from the shadows. Otapatl has a unique Attack action to reflect this role – a Range 3 Attack action that can give the target a Move token. This can wreak havoc on your opponent’s plans. If they want to avoid this by eliminating Otapatl, they will find the Chameleon Skink’s Defence characteristic of 2 Dodge (3 when Inspired!) can make it anything but an easy target, buying the rest of your warband more time.
While the Attack action may seem inaccurate, requiring rolls of Critical to succeed, you’ll see that with just one supporting fighter Otapatl’s darts become all but impossible to avoid.
Klaq-Troq – destruction
Speaking of supporting fighters, we come now to the Saurus Oldblood, Klaq-Troq. The saurus is everything that the rest of the warband isn’t – tough, hard-hitting, and aggressive. When the skinks encounter a threat they can’t avoid or disable, Klaq-Troq will see it destroyed.
Not only does the Saurus Oldblood have a Damage 3 Attack action to get things started, but they also have Powerful Jaws which they can use as a reaction after its activation. This means you can attack the same target twice with a single activation or spread your Attack actions around to cause maximum chaos and carnage.
You’ll also find that Klaq-Troq’s Inspire condition matches the saurus’ role in the warband – while the rest of the warband Inspires when you hold three or more objectives, Klaq-Troq Inspires when they make a successful Attack action.
The will of the slann
I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at some of the unique abilities that the Starblood Stalkers bring to Warhammer Underworlds. I can’t wait to hear about the amazing things that you do with them in your games.**
Thanks, Dave! As you may have seen on the Warhammer Underworlds road map, the Starblood Stalkers are available this month – in fact you’ll be able to pre-order them from this Saturday. Follow the Great Plan by joining us over on the Warhammer Underworlds Facebook page and letting us know how you’ll be using the latest warband for Direchasm.
* Where you can make the most of the updated support rules in the fourth season of Warhammer Underworlds.
** What many people don’t realise is that Dave is actually a Slann Starmaster himself, and he already knows EXACTLY how you’re going to use the Starblood Stalkers.