Hello, and welcome back to another article! Today I will review the new Wyrmhollow warband, Domitan’s Stormcoven, their fighter and normal cards, and their viability in Championship format! This is Part 1/4 in my Wyrmhollow core box card review, so be on the lookout for those in the week (or two)!
First of all, a few assumptions. At the time of writing, the theory is that the championship format will remain the same, and only Harrowdeep gets rotated, as well as plot lock stays. Therefore, I will write assuming that.
For each card and fighter, I will give a rating between A+ to F, depending on how viable they are in championship (or seem to be), with A+ being the best and F being the worst.
Anyways, I will start now!
FIGHTERS
Domitan is a wizard with an average 3 Move, 1 Shield, and 4 Wounds. His Range 2 attack is also average, while the Range 3 spell attack seems pretty accurate since it hits on Lightning Bolts (Channel) rather than Swirly-Wirly (Focus). His inspire condition is really weird until you read his Harness the Aether ability, which he shares with the rest of the warband, which allows him to inspire after another friendly fighter’s activation, as long as you uninspire everyone else. When he inspires, he gains an extra wound, +1 damage on his Range 2 attack, and Grievous and Cleave on his Azyrite Bolt, which now rolls dice equal to his wizard level, and becomes a leader. Additionally, when he inspires, he staggers all fighters within 2 hexes, which is really nice but requires him to be charged in first to have any sort of use. Overall, he seems like a pretty average uninspired fighter, but when inspired, he seems a bit underwhelming compared to other inspired fighters in championship, even if you take his ability into account since Snyp Padpaw (Skittershank’s Clawpack) can do it as well, and more than once per round, and immediately unlike Domitian.
Grade: B
Leona is also a wizard, with the only difference between Uninspired Domitan being her 4 move, and her Azyrite Bolt hitting on swirlies instead of lightning bolts. She is also flying. When she inspires (in the same way as Domitan, with the Harness the Aether), she becomes 2 Block, she gains +1 wizard level, she becomes a leader, and her Azyrite bolt changes to 2 damage. She also starts buffing everyone else through her Rushing Gales ability, giving everyone +1 move and Flying. Inspired, I think she is better than Domitan due to her slightly more damaging attack as well as her 2 defense, and her ability will have more use early on than Domitan’s. I would try to inspire her first to gain the +1 move for other fighters early on, to let another fighter reach further.
Grade: A-
Sarpon is the last fighter and seems to be very combat oriented. He has the same 3 Move 1 Block 4 Wounds as Domitan, and the same Azyrite Bolt as Leona, but his other attack (the Range 2) is much better than everyone else’s due to it’s 3 Smash instead of everyone else’s 2. When he inspires, he also gains +1 Wizard level and becomes a leader. He also gains +1 Defense and BOTH Grievous and Ensnare on his Azyrite Bolt. His accurate Range 2 attack gains an ability allowing it to deal 3 Damage if the target is adjacent, which can be fatal for your opponent, due to its accuracy. His ability upon inspiration is a free Sidestep (a push one hex), but it can be only used once per round. A cool way to use it would be to charge someone into a bunch of enemies, then inspire this guy and push them out! Overall, he seems to be the strongest fighter (at least to me), just a bit slow. Nothing Great Speed can’t fix.
Grade: A
OBJECTIVES
Channel the Storm – Arguably the easiest objective to score in the deck, inspire your second or subsequent fighter in the same round. The only reason you WON’T score it is if 2 fighters are dead. This is probably going to be an auto-include in any Stormcoven deck!
Grade: A+
Heavenly Alignment – Branching Fate, but for wizards. You score it if you roll 2 or more magic dice when attacking, and they all show a different symbol. The odds of this happening are around 66% with 2 dice (assuming my math is correct), so I would include this pretty much all the time, considering your spell attacks are usually going to be 2 dice, meaning they have a pretty high chance of scoring this card!
Grade: B+
Conduit of the Heavens – Cast your fourth or subsequent spell in the same round. Even for 2 glory, I find this objective pretty difficult to score, as you would either need to use 4 spell attacks in one round and have them all hit or load up on gambit spells which are easy to cast, and then hope you have them in hand when you draw this. However, if you believe you are lucky, you can make this objective work!
Grade: C
Heavensent – Cast a spell while being while holding an objective in enemy territory. Due to how this warband’s cards already want you to be on objectives, this might actually be a decent card! However, it requires putting one of your fighters into a pretty risky position and then having them hit either a spell attack or a casting roll for a gambit spell.
Grade: B-
Knights Triumphant – Requires you to have all of your fighters make at least one Harness the Aether reaction in the action phase and then have 2 or more of them not in your territory. Since most of the time, all of your fighters would have already made a Harness the Aether reaction in a round, the hard part would be getting into enemy territory (which isn’t that difficult since your fighters are pretty bulky when inspired). A strategy to score this can be charging one fighter in, inspiring whoever you will charge next, and repeating. For 2 glory, this seems tempting!
Grade: B+
Scouring Arcs – Kill someone with a spell. It’s decent, since all you already have a spell attack, the hard part would be hitting it to kill someone since most of them do only 1 damage and are usually the same or worse accuracy than the non-spell attacks. That, or go with a Sudden Demise build and load up on damaging gambit spells!
Grade: B-
Knights Victorious – Hold an objective in enemy territory and have killed someone in the previous phase with a spell. For 2 glory, it might be worth taking, but as previously stated, you would either need to commit to gambit spells to get spell kills or trust your relatively inaccurate and low damage spell attack actions, AND stay on an objective in enemy territory in the line of fire and prone to drive-backs.
Grade: B-
Tempest’s Fury – Score this immediately after the third move action made by your warband in the same phase. This seems decent, but it rapidly loses value when a fighter dies because you have to move one fighter twice or even one fighter 3 times, which can be wildly inefficient. Luckily your fighters are pretty bulky, so it’s going to be hard to lose a lot of them early on.
Grade: B
Eye of the Hurricane – One fighter has to have made 4 or more different actions in the same phase AND be in enemy territory. This seems like too much to ask for, even for 2 glory. The only time this WOULD be useful would be when only one fighter is left alive, and even then, they would need to go on guard, move, attack, and do something else (this is assuming charging does not count as an action. If it does, this card would be much better!)
Grade (without charging rule): D+
Grade (with charging rule): C+
Knights Arcanum – Have an inspired fighter hold an objective in enemy territory. For 2 glory, I think it’s worth considering. The difficulty is that you inspire a fighter OTHER than someone who was activated with Harness the Aether, so this would require a lot of forward planning and then not getting driven back once you charge or move onto the objective.
Grade: B-
Thunderstruck – Have 3 or more enemies either dead or with a wound counter. I don’t think it’s worth it for 1 glory since you would have to commit to damaging 3 different fighters, but the longer the game goes on, the more likely you are to score it. Once again, it’s only for 1 glory, though.
Grade: C+
Fulminating Bulwark – First of all, before this card was published, I thought Bulwark was spelled Bulwrack or Bulwrak. Anyways, this requires you to have 2 adjacent fighters be within 2 hexes of enemy territory. Many things can go wrong while scoring this (being driven back, giving your opponent a chance to do something evil…), and it’s only for 1 glory. It’s easy to be within 2 hexes of enemy territory, but being adjacent to someone else is risky and difficult.
Grade: D+
POWER CARDS
The Crown of Storms – A re-roll while casting. It’s an accuracy buff to your spells at no downside, I would pretty much always run it since you have a lot of spells to cast already. However, if you are going for a no-spell build, this card will be useless (surprising, I know).
Grade: A
Master of Ancient Lore – A kind-of Duel of Wits, it lets you draw a power card whenever an opponent plays a card or 2 cards if that card is a gambit spell. You can only use this once per round, but it is still worth it, especially at its downside (none).
Grade: A
Scroll of the Spell-Seeker – The way I understand this, whenever you cast a spell, that spell requires lightning bolts to cast, even if it was something else before. Assuming this is correct, I would say this is a pretty good card since there are 3 lightning bolts on a magic dice, but only 2 swirlies and 1 crit, meaning this is a pretty big accuracy buff. Additionally, 2/3 of your fighters use swirlies on their spell attacks, which would help them be more accurate. I would still take The Crown of Storms over this, but if you want double accuracy, run both!
Grade: B+
Lightning Lash – Wow, you can drive people back now. This card lets you push people when you hit them with a spell, which is pretty good since you would be able to push them in any direction instead of driving back, which only pushes away from you! In most cases, this won’t actually help that much, but in cases where it is useful, it is VERY useful. Additionally, it works with gambit spells.
Grade: B
Blades of Azyr – Gain stagger on your Range 2 attacks, and make them Range 3. This is insane on Sarpon’s blade since it is more accurate than everyone else’s and slightly worse on everyone else, but still decent. Keep in mind, making a Range 2 attack Range 3 will make it not applicable for Great Strength anymore! Anyways, giving +1 Range to a blade will make your fighters pretty scary since their blades will be doing 2 damage at Range 3, and then staggering your target (if you hit) to make them easier to hit next time!
Grade: B
Herald of the Storm – Gain +1 Move, and when you make a successful attack, you can turn a charge token into a move token if you have one! Unfortunately, removing the charge token might actually be a downgrade in some cases due to how the new charging rule works. If all my fighters have charge tokens, all of them can keep attacking, but if this fighter turns his into a move token, only they can keep attacking. If the fighter with this upgrade is the last one remaining, this is worth it! Otherwise, it’s situational.
Grade: B-
The Liber Fulminus – +1 Range to your Range 2+ spell attacks. This has some uses, allowing all your base spell attacks to have 4 range if they are given this upgrade. However, some better cards out there want an upgrade slot in your deck. If you are interested in making a spell-attack-based deck for these guys, I would recommend it, but otherwise, it can be overshadowed by other cards easily.
Grade: C+
Charged Weapons – Gain Grievous on your non-spell Range 1-2 attacks if you cast a spell this round. It might seem good until you remember Great Strength exists and overshadows this card in every way possible. If you would like more damage, I would run either Great Strength or both Great Strength and this one.
Grade: D+
Electrokinesis – Voted card name most likely to be misspelled 2023, this attack action upgrade is restricted to Domitan and is pretty weird. It is kind of accurate and deals only 1 damage, but it has an AoE stagger which is really nice until you remember that Domitan can already stagger everyone around him. If you like even more range on your staggers than you already have, run this. Otherwise, just stick with your normal spell attack and AoE stagger.
Grade: C
Electrified Grasp – Probably one of the most underwhelming spell attacks in the game right now. First of all, it’s Range 1 and 1 damage. Second, all of your wizards can only reach level 2 without upgrades. While it does have Cleave and Ensnare and Stagger, making it really accurate, you will only roll 2 dice pretty much ever since +1 Dice cards like Gifted Ferocity do not affect spell attacks, and there are no +1 Wizard level upgrades in the game right now. This makes it pretty much always hit if roll a success, but it only deals 1 damage. The only saving grace it has is that it is affected by Great Strength. Just run a ping instead.
Grade: D-
Celestial Blades – The first non-upgrade! A gambit spell cast on one lightning, it allows you give a fighter a re-roll in attacks till the end of the round. Rastus and Ammis are jealous. The only downside I see to this card is that it is a spell, making it have a chance of not going off.
Grade: A
Thundershock – A spell ping. Cast on one swirly, it lets you deal 1 damage to an adjacent fighter and then reduce the damage on all their attacks by 1, persisting till the end of the round. The downside is that you must be adjacent, but other than that, this card is REALLY good, simultaneously weakening and hurting an enemy! The -1 damage also has no range restriction, making Hexbane players sad.
Grade: B+
Howling Gales – Cast on one swirly-wirly, this lets you choose 2 enemy fighters in the same territory, and bring them close to each other, then stagger them if they are adjacent. This is a fatal card against hold objective warbands since they will all gather on objectives, and then you choose 2 of them and yoink them off! It can also be used in combination with Mighty Swing, bringing fighters close and staggering them to gain extra accuracy! Overall, a really good card in almost all cases!
Grade: B+
Azyrite Halo – A spell version of Armor of the Cythai from Elathain’s Soulraid. If cast on one swirly-wirly, enemy fighters adjacent to you have -1 dice from their attacks! This persists until the end of the round but is still really good! Once again, as with all gambit spells, its downside is that it has a chance to fail and do nothing.
Grade: B+
Lightning Tether – The spell version of Pit Trap, but a bit different! When you drive someone back, if you cast this on one lightning, you can deal 1 damage to each enemy fighter adjacent to the target. While it doesn’t damage the actual target, making it much more situational, if you manage to get someone driven back into a crowd and cast it, this will be fatal! You can also charge someone with low defense next to a high-defense vulnerable fighter and then drive them back into the vulnerable fighter and explode them!
Grade: B-
Pillar of Lightning – If you cast it with one lightning, you can turn a feature token within 4 hexes into a lethal hex for enemies till they enter it or the round ends! This can be really useful for denying people standing on feature tokens which a bunch of your objectives needs, or denying a token within one hex of no-ones territory when playing against a Fearsome Fortress player. It has some uses and can save a game, but it can also be easily avoidable.
Grade: B-
Blaze of the Heavens – Cast on one swirly, a spell ping with a range of 3 hexes plus the number of other friendly wizards within 2 hexes of you, meaning a maximum of 5. Overall, a really nice ping, but there may be better alternatives if you don’t mind losing the extra range potential, such as Flame Wisps, which has a higher chance of going off than this (assuming you roll 1 wizard dice for this).
Grade: B+
Aura of Power – Leg Sweep (Skittershank’s Clawpack) reprint. A really simple card that just staggers someone adjacent to you. You can use it for extra accuracy, but the fact that it has to be someone adjacent makes it really limiting. Additionally, this warband doesn’t have many objectives relating to stagger, so there really isn’t much point using it for that. This makes this a pretty weak choice accuracy-wise, especially since King of the Deeps exists.
Grade: C
Pass the Mantle – Basically, make a Harness the Aether reaction, but on a card. This can be used in a pinch if someone is getting ready to charge one of the fighters, and you have to quickly change the Inspired fighter to either gain +1 Block or +1 Wound. Since it is already easy to inspire someone, I personally would pass on this card, but there might be some cases where it will be really good!
Grade: C+
Positive Charge – Gain an extra dice for the first Range 1 or 2 attack, and gain +1 move to the first Inspired fighter to charge next activation. This seems like a better Determined Effort to me, however, since this warband has a lot of Range 3 attacks, this might be a little limiting. Then again, +1 Dice ploys don’t affect spell attacks. The +1 Move for a charge can be clutch!
Grade: A-
And that’s it! Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this! If you have any feedback, you can contact me on Twitter or Discord (VintroV2#0001)! Be on the lookout for the next 3 articles in this series, Ephilim’s Pandaemonium and the Seismic Shock and Toxic Terrors, and I hope to see you again soon!
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