Welcome! As the ghastly beats of the drum can be heard in the corridors of the Beastgrave we will delve into the review of the newest warband for the Grand Alliance of Death - Drepur’s Wraithcreepers. This is a warband composed of four glaivewraiths and is a second warband of the new Starter Set. The other one is Storm of Celestus and you can find my review of them here.
Inspire Condition
The inspiration mechanics for this warband is a bit interesting. Every model inspires individually and 3 out of them share a condition, while fourth (and interestingly not a leader) has a separate one.
All of the wraiths except the Patrician will inspire if at the start of your activation there will be at least one enemy fighter within two hexes from them. This is very similar to Thorns of the Briar Queen, but better.
The Patrician in turn will inspire if at the start of your activation each other surviving friendly fighter is in enemy territory.
Oh boy these guys are not here to hang back. They’ll want to get up close to enemy fighters, skewer them with their glaives and inspire from hanging around their foes. Patrician in the meantime will inspire if all others will be sent off to menace opponents in their own territory. Very flavourful.
The Fighters
All of the wraiths share one rule: Intangible. As all other ghosts - wraithcreepers are able to move through the blocked and occupied hexes, but have to end the move in an empty hex. What’s interesting is the fact that they’re not immune to lethal hexes. Turns out that those ghosts can get burnt by the environment.
Viceroy Drepur - the leader of the warband - he’s offering some respectable stats. He’s got move 3, defends on a two dodge and has 4 wounds. That is one heck of a ghost! In addition to that he’s offering range 2 Hunter’s Glaive attack that hits on 2 hammers for 2 damage. Decent attack action - because it’s range 2 it is offsetting the slow movement a bit. 2 dodge off the bat is also great!
Once inspired he gains 1 move and his attack action goes up to 3 hammers. On top of that he gains a re-roll of a single attack dice for his glaive attack making him super accurate. Add some +damage and you’ve got a very precise damage dealer here.
The Patrician - Drepur’s right hand. The dynamic between him and Drepur is strongly resembling one between the Briar Queen and Varclav. In both warbands leaders are strong fighters while their seconds in command are fulfilling the role more related to leadership.
The Patrician has the same base stats as Drepur - he has movement 3, defends on 2 dodges and has 4 wounds. His attack profile is substantially worse though - his Bite has range 1, hits on 3 fury and deals 1 damage. I guess rusted glaive is better than horse teeth.
What’s so special about the Patrician is his reaction - Deathbeat. After an opponent’s power step the Patrician can push one friendly fighter by one hex towards the closest enemy fighter. This is pretty big - our ghosts aren’t very quick, but they’re making it up by having 4 potential pushes per round. You can have them advance slowly but steadily until they’re in charge range. You could also push one of your fighters close enough so he can inspire before own activation. Very cool ability and fits very well with the inspire condition and general theme.
Upon inspiration he goes up to move 4 and gains an extra point of damage bumping him up to 2. In addition his Deathbeat can now affect up to two fighters instead of one. That’s pretty amazing.
Sire Haqfel - in life haughty noble, now a thrall of Drepur. His stats are not as impressive as his liege’s - he has movement 3, defends on a single dodge and has 3 wounds. Still a decent body for a ghost. Just as Drepur he’s wielding Hunter’s Glaive - range 2 attack hitting on 2 hammers for 2 damage.
Once inspired he gains one defense dice, 1 move and cleave. He wants to inspire - those extra stats are cool to have. Cleave is only a bonus to this. Overall this is a solid fighter even though a bit fragile to start with.
Grodrig The Lance - Grodrig is our final wraith - he’s pretty much a carbon copy of Sire. Has 3 move, single dodge and 3 wounds. He’s wielding Hunter’s Glaive that has range 2, hits on 2 hammers and for 2 damage.
Once inspired he goes to movement of 4, 2 dodge and instead of Cleave he gains Ensnare. Essentially the same fighter as the Sire, but more focused on cutting dodge based enemies down rather than being a can opener. Same as his other glaive bro he’s best to inspire quickly to help him survive longer.
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At first glance Wraithcreepers are presenting themselves as quite decent, aggressive warband that wants to go close to the enemy and start the slaughter. Nothing in their fighter kit hints that they’ll be good with the standard theme of Nagash warbands - holding the objectives. Instead they have the ability to push forward even outside of their activations and they’ve got three range two attacks to avoid having to charge into melee range. Only possible downside is their damage output which is rather on the low side. Ideally I would see at least one fighter being able to push into 3 damage in some way. But this can be quickly fixed with an upgrade or two - Viceroy with his superb accuracy is a great platform to turn him into a tank killer. Sire and Grodrig can get pretty accurate as well thanks to having attacks on hammers and having Cleave or Ensnare baked into their attacks.
Faction Specific Cards
While rating the cards I will be following system as below:
1 - a very powerful card. You should take it in nearly every deck. A staple.
2 - a very strong card that you should consider taking. Might not always make the cut, but should usually contend with other options.
3 - a situational card that might prove to be good in certain situations or with proper card support
4 - a weak card. You might find use for it, but in general most often you’ll be better off with other picks.
Faction Objectives
Death’s Bounty - here we go. Right off the bat we can see that these guys are not here to take prisoners. While this one pays well with 3 glory it’s simply too hard (or even dead in certain matchups).
Rating: 4
Death’s Triumph - you’re probably going to be staying in enemy territory a lot. You could try to hold objectives while at it. I’m just not 100% sure your deck is going to have enough space to fit all the tech needed to keep your fighters on two objectives in there. If yes, then it might be worth a shot - especially that the Patrician’s reaction could potentially help scoring this.
Rating: 3
Deathly Blooms - an easier version of Death’s Triumph. Worth only one glory, but might be worth looking into it. It has however quite solid competition in the area of 1 glory end phase objectives.
Rating: 3
Dread Harvest - killing two enemy fighters is fairly doable, but one glory payout is rather poor. It’s probably better to take Bold Deeds or Clean Kills instead - similar effort, but 2 glory payout. You could also run this along one of those for some synergy from getting kills.
Rating: 3
Ethereal Hunters - this one is great. While you’re a bit slow at the start of the game it’s still possible to set your board in such a way that you’ll make a charge through a blocked hex or through one of the fighters. You could even push one of your guys with Patrician in such a way that he’s in the way of your charge to score this.
Rating: 1
Inevitable Advance - this is super easy to score, but I feel it competes and loses a bit with Team Effort. Still - it’s a very solid objective for 1 glory filler in the end phase.
Rating: 2
Massed Blades - you have a team where all of your front fighters have attack range 2. You’re likely better off trying to capitalize on this and stay 1 hex away from the enemy - and as such not being in a position to support. Still, this is very possible to score. Also Patrician can help set it up.
Rating: 2
Piercing Blow - good old What Armour?. I have fond memories of this objective - Thundrik’s really liked it. But for Drepur’s team it’s not that good. Your only source of cleave is a fighter who has 3 wounds and a single dodge before inspiration. And he has to inspire to gain that keyword. Too risky in my opinion, but could work if you really pushed for it.
Rating: 3
Scythed Down - those guys are really focused on a single thing. I respect that. This objective is definitely something to consider, but again - you’d want to weigh it against things like Bold Deeds or Clean Kills.
Rating: 3
The Hunt Pursues - it’s good. Not great, not terrible. Just good.
Rating: 3
Unstoppable Death - pretty solid staple for an aggro warband. Worth taking.
Rating: 2
Veneance of Nagash - surge for killing an enemy leader… not great. Also worth only 1 glory point where most of the counterparts offer 2. Not worth the slot.
Rating: 4
Faction Gambits
Deadly Vengeance - a ploy that allows your dying fighter to make one final attack? Yes, please. This is pretty cool and can be a nasty surprise for your opponent.
Rating: 1
Drifting Death - this is a pretty cool push card. Limited to only push towards an enemy, but that’s what you usually will want to do anyway.
Rating: 1
Enervating Beat - first defensive ploy for this warband. It’s not very strong, but it can help save your fighter sometimes. Overall you might prefer to take something better.
Rating: 3
Fevered Beat - so this will change enemy attack characteristic to fury. It’s not bad, as it can get a quite nice chunk of accuracy away from opponents' attacks. Sadly it’s telegraphed, so can be worked around with some extra accuracy.
Rating: 3
Heart-Piercer - pocket option to gain Cleave. It can be nice to bust some tanks or fighters on guard. Can also score you Piercing Blow. Overall though you’re probably better with investing into one of the +dice accuracy options.
Rating:4
Horrifying Shriek - an in-faction Distraction. Range limit is mildly annoying, but overall this is a strong card. Distraction effects are always high value ones.
Rating: 1
Methodical Attacks - reaction to renew a failed attack is fantastic. In most cases you should take it.
Rating: 1
Somnolent Beat - this can be pretty rough for slower warbands. It can stop charges or make reaching the objective impossible. You could play it to counterplay speed boost that would help score speed surges. So it’s not a bad card. Trouble is that typically it will have little use versus faster (or even average speed) warbands.
Rating: 4
Stuff of Nightmares - short range ploy that gives 33% chance to deal 1 damage. That’s not practical. This kind of ploys shouldn’t have a chance to fail.
Rating: 4
Unending Pursuit - Drepur’s own copy of Sidestep. It’s pretty cool to have this many friendly push options.
Rating: 2
Faction Upgrades
Bitter Strength - faction copy of Great Strength. Given their low base damage they’ll need this a lot. They’re also in a peculiar place where they can’t benefit from upgrades like Sting of Ur-grub due to range and probably wouldn’t like to use Savage Strength because they defend on a two dice. So every bit of damage that doesn’t hurt you in some way is precious for them.
Rating: 1
Carrion Companion - very limited Tome of Offerings. Limitation to Haqfel it’s probably a deal breaker on this one. The fact that you have to abandon the advantage of your range 2 attack to make it work is also pretty bad. If this was more flexible it would’ve been much better.
Rating: 4
Death Grasp - general idea behind this attack is pretty good. It also is very accurate and has decent damage. Only trouble is the range of it. If this was range 2 it would’ve been a fantastic tool to lock key fighters down. Because it’s range 1 it’s super situational. Another way of making it work would be to allow other fighters to take it.
Rating: 3
Deathly Vigour - extra wounds? That’s what brawler needs. Solid card.
Rating: 2
Memories of the Hunt - getting extra movement is nice, but bare +1 is a bit lacking these days. It’s still not bad at all.
Rating: 3
Murderous Accomplice - Blindside baked into an upgrade. It’s pretty cool, as it helps to move your fighters across the board. But it also helps score some of your surges. Overall pretty decent piece of tech - especially for a warband that just wants to push forward to enemy fighters. If this was not restricted only to Grodrig it would be really strong.
Rating: 3
Murderpact - this is such a cool piece of tech. If your fighter has support he gets +1 damage for his attack actions. If he’s the supporting one he’ll provide +1 dice to the attacking fighter. Very fun upgrade and arguably one of the most interesting ones for this warband. Couple it with Deathbeat or Murderous Accomplice and you can get lots of value out of this one.
Rating: 1
Pall of Fear - pretty good defensive upgrade. -1 dice can hurt your opponent quite a bit. It’s cool that this works both on range 1 and 2 making it a bit more versatile than other similar upgrades.
Rating: 2
Tearing Claws - this upgrade is actually providing a really accurate attack. It’s fairly similar to 2 hammer attack versus 1 and 2 dice defense but gets significantly more accurate vs fighters on guard or with 3+ defense dice. Pretty cool. Only issue is that it’s range 1 and limited to the Patrician - a model you wouldn’t want to commit into melee combat.
Rating: 3
The Point of Death - rerolls on attack dice are very good. It’s a bit of a shame it’s limited to charges - still worth taking as you’ll be doing that a lot.
Rating: 2
Closing Thoughts
Drepur’s Wraithcreepers shape to be a pretty solid aggro warband. Their purpose is pretty clearly stated within their objectives and power deck. You’ll not find any hold objective nonsense in there (well… okay, you’ll find a little bit of it, but let’s just ignore those cards ;) ). Instead there are tools to get close to their enemy and start butchering. And their objectives are rewarding them for doing exactly that.
The Patrician is a really fun element of this warband - he’s providing tons of mobility and is the de-facto leader of the warband - just as Varclaw was for Thorns. Viceroy Drepur is beastly accurate with his 3 hammers and built in reroll. Grodrig and Haqfel have access to Cleave and Ensnare, so depending on who you’re facing it’s possible to have one of them be very accurate against your opponents. They both are also decent anti-guard fighters. All three fighters (so everyone except the Patrician) sport range 2 attacks, which is great.
One big downside is their low base damage - only 2 for all but the Patrician who is even lower with his 1 damage. This means you’ll have to invest quite a bit into damage upgrades to be efficient versus tougher warbands. Move 3 is also a fairly limiting factor. It is being offset by range 2 attack and Patrician’s ability to push fighters closer though. But still - this could prove to be quite an annoyance sometimes.
Looking at their faction cards it becomes clear they’re designed to be a warband used for introduction to the game - you’ll find lot’s of very basic “+1” cards like +1 wound, +1 speed, +1 dice or 1 hex push. Nothing super advanced or more fancy. But that’s okay actually. Most of them can be easily replaced in Championship format, but most of them are doing a decent job of introducing a new player into the mechanics of the game. And many of them can be effective even if not replaced by better cards - maybe not optimal, but not useless.
Having said that there are some standout cards like Murderpact. There are also some cards that would’ve been really cool if not overburdened with limitations like Carrion Companion or Murderous Accomplice.
Overall this is a pretty fun warband that has a decent chance to be viable on the championship tables. A solid aggro warband for all of you who simply like to keep chopping.
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