If you like teleporting, taking advantage of cover/feature hexes, and preying on the weak, shame on you. Also, the Shadeborn might just be your jam. This warband wants to be in enemy territory and has the tools to put the hurt on you – after all, they are classed as a Strike Warband. Pack some pings, find an opponent who likes to delve, and twirl your most sinister mustache as we draw our blades across the Shadeborn’s warscroll.

Thank you to Games Workshop for providing the page with an advance copy of this product for review and content creation.

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The Shadeborn: Lore

The Shadeborn are a pack of four Khainite Shadowstalkers of Hagg Narr, who were introduced in the Nethermaze core box. Shadowstalkers each are branded with the Shademark, granting supernatural abilities while binding their souls to servitude. The were presumably sent by Morathi to root out seditionists hiding in the Nethermaze and consolidate her hold over the Daughters of Khaine, but in reality, their super-secret mission was to figure out how to bind the power of the Nethermaze to Morathi and let her get more magic MacGuffins. So while on paper they’re assassins and brownshirts, they’re actually just nerds.

Nerds who can literally vanish in one pool of shadow and teleport to another with a blade in hand, that is. Slythael Shadestalker is their leader, who wears an enchanted mirror mask and has a mutating weapon that can be whatever she needs to get the job done. Her right-hand woman, Drusylla Viserax, has similar but lesser abilities, and I have to assume took her name’s inspiration from the evil stepsister in Cinderella (I watch a lot of Disney with my kid these days). Valyssa Umbrael is very mean, and they’re all very mean to Sylarc Greyblood, the lowly crossbow dude on the totem pole. Normally DoK take men as slaves, and I’m pretty sure he’s not an exception even though he’s a minor wizard.

The Shadeborn: Warscroll

Inspire

If you attack a target that is already damaged, inspire the attacking fighter. The great news is you don’t even have to hit – just target somebody who is damaged. with a couple of your fighters really benefiting from inspire, this is something you’ll want to work towards.

Your warband has a ping on the warscroll which we’ll come to later, but you’ll also appreciate pings in your deck more than most players. Spread some damage in a power step, then prey on the weak to inspire in the subsequent action step. Some of your fighters have pretty good inspired profiles, so this is something you’ll want to be focused on.

Shademark

As we will see, your fighters’ save stats are… not the greatest. However, you have a saving grace in the Shademark. If your fighters are in a cover hex or are in enemy territory, you’ll get a defensive reroll. This will incentivize you to get into enemy territory, and being in cover helps your survivability (and a few of your warscroll abilities), so doing that is a great idea too.

If you’re staying at home, get into cover hexes. If you’re invading, you can sort of ignore them. This is a great improvement over their first edition version that effectively required you to play around cover, and in a world where cover hexes are no longer printed on boards, it’s cool to not have to think about delving so often.

Gloomweb Hex

Once a game in a power step, you can use this ability to make enemy fighters have -1 save if they’re on or next to a feature token. If you really need to hit somebody, pop this right before you charge them and reduce their defense (to a minimum of one dice).

Within 1 hex of a feature token is a pretty decent chunk of the board, so you’ll be able to use this at some point against most warbands. Aqua Ghyranis tokens count as features, so you have more of a bubble than before. If playing on a Spitewood board with Waystone hexes, it will be quite easy to tag somebody with this!

With so many 2 defense fighters out there these days, especially in the ‘top of meta’ warbands, you will routinely get use out of this ability.

Dark Lamprey

Here’s the juice. Once a game in a power step, pick somebody within 3 hexes of one of your fighters. If they’re not vulnerable, ping them for a damage. No dice roll, no defense, just straight damage. This is great for putting somebody into kill range, but it’s also awesome because it means that fighter is now damaged, and you’ll inspire when you attack them. I’m glad it requires the fighter be within 3 of yours, because without that restriction this ability would be bonkers good.

It can also slay 1 health things like the Venomites from Jaws of Itzl, since they’re not considered vulnerable. The ability doesn’t care about the status of your fighter, so you can use this after a charge to dish out more hurt onto the same target, or toss out a ping to a second target. You can use this before a charge to soften up your target. You can use it at the end of the round to satisfy a scoring condition. You have lots of options.

Impenetrable Darkness

This ability once a game gives every one of your fighters the status of being in a cover hex. This will give them all a reroll on their save dice as well as giving them Surrounded results counting as successes, which in combination is a pretty big defense boost. You don’t need get a second reroll for being in enemy territory, so this ability might be best used early game when most of your fighters are still in your territory and easy prey for opponent’s charges.

I am not sure if this is legit or not, but you could make the argument that their counting as being “on a cover token” puts enemies adjacent to them as “within 1 hex of a feature token”, and therefore punishable with Gloomweb Hex. More importantly though, it should allow you to activate Shadow Ambush, which we will cover below.

Shadow Ambush

The warband’s signature ability, and the reason they were so scary in season 1. Immediately after a friendly fighter is picked to move (and I believe this includes moving as part of a charge action) if that fighter is on a cover token, remove them from the battlefield, then place them in an empty edge hex in enemy territory and give them a move token.

If I’m right, and you can charge with this, you’ll jump to an edge hex in enemy and hit effectively any target you want if they’re near a board edge. No more hiding in the back!

If I’m wrong and it’s just for a move action and you had to be in cover to start the move, it’s much more limited (and honestly kind of bad), and in either case getting a move token after the teleport seems like it doesn’t do anything. You’re already getting one with the move action anyway, and the charge would already have been initiated so the move token wouldn’t block it. Weird thing to have added on to this ability.

I don’t think you can move further from the edge though – drop them in an edge hex and then give them the token. They don’t actually ‘move’. The challenge will be setting up a situation where you’re on a cover hex to use this – so consider playing with Pillage and Plunder or be aggressive with your use of Shadow Ambush to make that important teleport when you need it.

The Shadeborn: Fighter Cards

Slythael Shadestalker

Your leader, who rocks a quite accurate 2 hammers 2 damage at range 2 with cleave and ensnare. She starts at 4 move, 4 health and 2 dodge, and is a pretty formidable fighter for 2 glory. She inspires to 3 hammers but is otherwise unchanged, so she’s a prime target for getting the first hit on somebody to soften them up and let one of your other fighters inspire.

Against hordes she’s going to be a machine – get her onto a central token in cover and just spam accurate 2 damage attacks from range 2. Against everything else she’s going to be a terror too, with fly in her profile and a 6 hex threat range she’ll get where she needs and ignore your save dice.

Drusylla Vyserax

Now here’s a lady who is looking to inspire. Drusylla has 2 range, 3 swords, 2 damage, which is pretty solid on its own, but inspires to gain grievous. That’s 3 damage at range 2, y’all.

She unfortunately is a 1 dodge fighter, but her 4 health should keep her trucking for a couple hits. Her accuracy doesn’t improve when inspired either, so setting up flanked or getting some rerolls will be clutch for her. But 3 damage at range is spicy, so it’s worth planning around.

If you’re facing Shadeborn, I would slay Drusylla first in most matchups. If you’re playing with Shadeborn, she deserves a lot of your offensive upgrades and defense tech.

Valyssa Umbrael

This lady is a little less useful than the first two, but considering she’s a 1 bounty fighter she’s actually really strong. 4 health and 1 dodge like the other non-leaders in this warband, she has a 3 sword 2 damage attack which is just fine. When she inspires though, she gains crit grievous on her first attack AND a new second attack profile of 2 hammers 1 damage with cleave in the event you have to finish somebody off.

For those keeping track at home, this is the second fighter in the warband with a potential for 3 damage when inspired. Yes, it’s crit dependent, but with 3 dice those are ~50% odds. It’s nice to see a real Dark Elf Glass Cannon warband, for old times’ sake.

Sylarc Greyblood

This boy had a glow-up and is two bounty. Guess he’s not bottom of the pecking order after all! He has the same 1 dodge 4 health 4 move as the other friends, but has a pretty accurate 2 damage melee attack as well as a ranged option. When inspired he gains only ensnare on the crossbow. That’s it. He’s your weakest inspire and should be the setup man for the rest of your team. If you inspire hi, great, but it shouldn’t be part of your core strategy.

You unfortunately can’t dangle him as bait though since he gives up 2 bounty. Maybe this guy is the worst after all. Park him on a token or use him for scoring objectives, or just launch him in for a 2 damage initial hit and accept his fate.

In Practice

I recorded a handful of practice games with this warband in prep for this article, and they won all five times. Once with Pillage and Plunder rivals, once with Realmstone Raiders rivals (where hitting Kro-Jax a couple times with Raider’s Rapture online meant they ran through the whole deck), once with Blazing/Raging in nemesis, and another two times with Wrack/Realmstone.

Things went somewhat as I expected – the warscroll ping is great, their accuracy is very good, and once you’re in enemy territory that defensive reroll is pretty nice. More than once the ‘sorry bro, your save is reduced by 1’ warscroll ability made a big difference too. Depending on your opponent it can be a little tough to hit a damaged fighter (such as against hordes), so pack some pings!

Potential Pairings

Pillage and Plunder jumps out as a solid option, as you’ll be generating your own cover hexes and can use them for your warscroll. Slot that in with Blazing Assault and you’ve got a solid aggro option for sure.

Countdown to Cataclysm has pings to help inspire, as well as an out of sequence attack in the form of Improvised Weapon. Lots of inspiration opportunities there. With most of the warband on 1 dodge, they’re going to enjoy Utter Conviction as well. Pairing that with Wrack and Ruin gives you pings and pushes, which again will help with their attacks, inspiration, and setup – and it’s a VERY strong combo for these guys. Careful with their edge hex teleport business though!

With pretty solid accuracy you could spring for Realmstone Raiders too. And considering your capacity for damage 3, need to hit, and the fact everybody would benefit from Haymaker, Raging Slayers is on the shortlist. You’ll need to find ways to convince them to bring the fight to you, but they should do well enough with Hunting Grounds – though your warscroll does want you being the aggressor.

Wrap

While it’s not as explosive as, say, Gorechosen, this warband can still Strike hard, especially once inspired. You’ll be mobile, accurate, surprisingly high-damage, and with a few fancy tricks up your shadowed sleeves. If you can hit first and get lucky on defense, you can do a lot of good work with the warband. Happy hunting, and if you’re up against these shadowstalkers, stay away from those Edge hexes!

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Thanks again to Games Workshop for providing me with this product so that I can produce this review content.