Hey All! Today I would like to discuss one of the mechanics in the game that has been with us since the early days of Shadespire - bringing fallen fighters back in action. I’m aware this might be a bit controversial topic - especially for the fans of those warbands who can resurrect their fighters, but I’m going to try to show you why I consider it as harmful to the game in its current state.
To kick it off - 4 warbands can bring their fighters back. Those are Sepulchral Guard, Spiteclaw’s Swarm, The Grymwatch, and - to a degree - Elathain’s Soulraid. Interestingly - each of them has its own flavor of resurrection that does have a significant impact on the game. I will go over them and rank them while at it.
Rank 1: The Cancer
Spiteclaw’s Swarm - they can ress one of the small rats on any starting hex on the board. There are no restrictions in terms of territory and it is super accurate in terms of delivering your fighter precisely where you would want it. The only real downside is the fact that you have to spend an activation to do it or play a ploy that resurrects (luckily there’s only one). This is super annoying - it is a very nasty rat delivery method. Combined with a movement of 5 it means your rats will have access to any place on the board. The other downside is the fact that Skritch can’t bring Krrk back, but that’s not very relevant for our rats, so it’s not a thing that would have an impact on the game.
Rank 2: Super Annoying
The Grymwatch - oh boy, the ghouls again. This lot has been such an offender on so many levels in this game. When it comes to resurrection mechanics I did some mental exercises while trying to decide whether this one is better than the Skaven one or not. In the end, I’ve decided that Skritch is the best at ressing, yes-yes. Not by a lot, but still better. Crackmarrow can deliver his ghouls to almost any edge hex on the board. What’s awesome is the fact that he’s not limited by starting hexes. There are some downsides though. The first one is the fact that you can only bring back your weaker fighters. Losing Gristlewel can be painful and he will not return (unless Partial Resurrection has been played). Overall this is not a huge problem though. The second downside is the randomness involved and the fact that you cannot spawn your fighter in the middle of the board. Ghouls are fast, so this might not be a big deal, as they’ll reach their destinations, but you’ll not park your dude near enemy fighters for some free attacks. Some odd scatter rolls can fling them in some hilarious positions as well. On the flip side - there’s an in-faction ploy to bring one ghoul back. Also - because ghouls belong to the Grand Alliance of Death they do have access to Partial Ressurection, which is not limited to crypt ghouls and is far more predictable. Lastly - throughout the game, ghouls get two resses for free - one at the beginning of both: turn 2 and turn 3.
Rank 3: Almost Okay
Sepulchral Guard - good old skeletons. Those guys are the pioneers in the resurrection field and at the same time, their options are most thematic, but also very limited. Skeletons can be brought back by Warden without any exceptions. The first time this happens to a fighter he also gets inspired, so not only your skeleton is back but he’s also coming back upgraded. They do have access to an in-faction ploy that can bring them back and they too can benefit from Partial Resurrection. But this is where cool stuff ends. They don’t get any free actions and they do have to place their fighter in starting hex in their own territory. This coupled with low movement speed makes their un-life much harder when compared to previously mentioned warbands. Skeletons are slower than ghouls and rats and defend worse than rats. This is why they’re well below in terms of the quality of their resurrection skills.
Rank 4: I think I like it
Elathain’s Soulraid - this is by far the most limited option of the four. It works only on Tammael and requires Elathain to kill someone to bring Tammael back. Once brought back Tammael has to be placed in friendly territory. Luckily this is not a huge downside thanks to his ranged attack. But overall it’s the hardest resurrection to perform and there are no cards to bring him back. This makes the overall resurrection options for Soulraid the worst of all. And by far.
So… all of the warbands have different ways of bringing their fighters back - each having their strengths and their weak sides, but… where’s the problem then?
In my opinion, the ability to bring your fighter back on demand is breaking the game right now. Why? Meta in Direchasm has promoted the usage of torpedo fighters. Take small, expendable fighter. Give him one or two upgrades - a weapon and maybe Great Strength. Add Punching Up or Inspired Attack and send him to hit an elite fighter for 4 damage on 3-4 hammers. If you miss, well it was worth a shot… if you hit, then you’ve just eliminated one of the key fighters and even if you lose your torpedo then it is still a net gain for you. One or two torpedoes and you’ve most likely disabled a large part of your opponent’s scoring potential. It has been a very effective strategy - it did bear some small risks of losing your investment of upgrades, but it was worth the shot.
With resurrecting fighters, we’re effectively removing that minimal risk from the equation. Your torpedo got killed? It’s fine - he’ll be back with his deadly load intact. Ready to tear down another target. With a bit of luck, you could get a few charges with the same fighter in a single round. So your investment is safe. As long as your leader is on the board, removing the threat posed by your fighter is extremely hard. To the point where your opponent might not even want to take it out and just hope for the best. Instead, he will try to go for other targets and pray that you might not land one of your attacks or something.
Why is it such a problem only now?
This is not a new problem - it has been an issue through the good part of Direchasm already. That season has provided a lot of accuracy and easily obtainable damage. Direchasm alone, Essentials Pack, and Arena Mortis 2 - they all have added ploys and upgrades to quickly boost the damage and ensure that attacks succeed. On top of that Harrowdeep does help to teleport slower fighters around thanks to cards like Reborn in Darkness. This makes SG being able to easier deliver their fighters to their destinations.
Back in the days of Shadespire, this has not been an issue for two reasons:
you would score far less glory per game making glory bleed a real issue
the pool of damage and accuracy upgrades was smaller
With Nightvault glory ceiling has gone up, but the glory bleed has still been real with Tome of Offerings keeping horde warbands at bay. Giving 2 glory away per kill was rough… unless you’ve been playing Skaven. Those could make two of their fighters virtually immune to glory bleed thanks to Expendable and Crown of Avarice. They were breaking the system even back then and with Expendable (which I consider as one of the most broken upgrades in the history of this game) opponents wouldn’t even score any surges for their effort. At least that bit has been fixed...
With Nightvault cards out of the pool and with a serious influx of easy damage and accuracy in Beastgrave and Direchasm, we’ve arrived at where we’re now. It’s very easy to turn a weak fighter into a killer and there isn’t a lot opponents can do to punish it. And if you can re-use that fighter… well then it’s even better, right?
We’ve gotten to the point where you can turn any ghoul, rat, or skeleton into a beast. You can easily turn Champion into a fighter who has 4 dice, cleave, and 4-5 damage with a movement speed of 5. That’s a lot of upgrades to achieve that, sure. But he will get them eventually and there’s very little you can do about it unless you manage to kill the Warden very quickly. Such Champion has a 72-85% chance of killing his target - depending on their defense profile. That’s roughly 80% chances for the opponent to lose one of their elite fighters per round (at the very least). If he ignores him, there’s a ~20% chance of not losing at least one fighter then. Not great. If he does focus him then he’s only removing Champion’s charge tokens and allowing him to charge again. That skeleton can come back even if Warden is dead thanks to Restless Dead, so if you’re playing an elite warband with 3-4 models on 4 wounds, you’re in a tough spot. Trading one for one is not possible, because effectively you’re trading your models for making the opponent have to spend an activation to bring his torpedo back. You’ll run out of models faster than he will spend all his activations and he will likely be better off on this exchange glory-wise.
What to do about it?
This is the big question. How to limit those warband’s ability to delete 4 wound fighters with low risk and effort while not leaving them powerless against tougher opponents?
In my opinion, two things can be done. The first one is to limit the amount of easy damage. Cards like Punching Up or Berserker Rage are a major offender here as they provide both damage and accuracy. Both favor heavily those torpedo fighters - Punching Up won’t be even possible to play in an elite warband in 95 out of 100 games. And Berserker Rage has a significant drawback to it… unless you’re playing it on the guy who will be coming back anyway. Apart from those, I would argue that things like Great Strength and various weapons like Silent Sword should also see a restriction. If you really want to go stacking those cards at least pay for it by not having access to other restricted cards.
The second thing would be some form of a drawback to resurrecting a fighter. One of those would be having to break one of his upgrades. You’ll get your fighter back, but he will not be as risk-free weapon caddy anymore. And that would be a nice thing. Now you’d have to actually consider whether to send your Hungering Skaven with Expendable, Black Hunger, and Silent Sword into the fray. Because bringing him back will cost you an upgrade. He will still be strong, but not as insane as he was before.
Truth to be told, I would like to see both of those things happen. Damage and accuracy are too easy to come by and this is negatively impacting more elite warbands. And adding a cost to resurrection would introduce a degree of skill into decision-making by removing its risk-free factor.
So… this is it. As always - I’m very keen to learn your opinion on this subject, so feel free to let me know what do you think!
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