Continuing some retrospective warband reviews, today we’re starting back at the beginning of Second Edition with our current poster boys and gal: The Emberwatch. This three-fighter Elite warband is classified as Flex, and their incredibly versatile warscroll and well-rounded stats are definitely in support of this. No matter how you like to play and what deck you’re looking to try, the Emberwatch can get the job done for you. Sigmar knows they have for me!
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The Emberwatch: Lore
The Emberwatch are a trio of Stormcast who have the enviable position of being promoted to nowhere and left to rot in Embergard’s mines. Ostensibly to reward Ardorn Flamerunner’s go-getter attitude despite his relative youth for a Stormcast, he alongside Farasa Twice-Risen and Yurik Velzaine were sent to the ruins of the city in order to hold down the fort until reinforcements arrive or something and they can reclaim the bountiful realmstone mines. That hasn’t happened, and looks more and more like it’s never going to, so now they sit down there and bicker amongst each other in between furious bouts of fighting off intruders who are trying to get at those resources for themselves.
Ardorn was already an angry boy prior to this semi-exile, and it hasn’t made him any happier. Surrounded by Emberstone, colloquially known as ‘rage rock’, his resentment and quick temper flare all the more readily. Farasa Twice-Risen is described as ‘a silent and merciless killer’ with paired blades, and while she has never had her origins confirmed, I am DEAD certain that she was some kind of undead/revenant/vampire/zombie prior to her reforging as a stormcast. How else do you rise twice? What’s with the face coverings? Why so pale? I assume this is what Ardorn needles her over and she doesn’t take no lip (she probably doesn’t have one either).
If it wasn’t for the ever chilled out and reasonable Yurik, this squad would likely have slain each other by now. However, they still like to stand alone, spread out, and be in separate territories, which comes through in their rules as we will see in a minute. Nice to have some Stormcast with personality and flavor besides order-slaved borderline automata and/or Lawful Good white knight tropes. Fight me, Thomas.
(Note: While I do think these sigmarines are the best lore-wise and most characterful, I want to point out that Stormcast in general get way less love than they deserve. In many, many respects, the faction and the individuals are significantly more tragic and compelling than Space Marines and it’s a shame we don’t have something like the Horus Heresy book series to showcase that)
The Emberwatch: Warscroll
Inspire
This one is both easy and hard to pull off; If you start an action in enemy territory, inspire the fighter that did the action after they’re done. That means you’ll need to find a way to get into enemy territory and then do something while you’re there. We will see later on but inspiring a fighter or two is going to be very helpful for your survivability and offensive output. Some games it’s better to play keep-away, but if you’re got the stones and the opportunity, try and flood the enemy territory early with power cards and warscroll abilities so you can activate and inspire your fighters in the first handful of activations.
Alternatively, you can move and then attack, charge all your fighters and activate a charged out one, etc. In some games it will end up being a round 2 inspire, but if you’re planning to do a little dancing in combat you may want to find ways to do this early with things like Sidestep, Commanding Stride, Canny Sapper, Hidden Paths, Vanguard Dash, and more.
Alone I Stand!
This here is an ability that can win you games if played right but will take some finesse and practice. In the last power step of a round, you can choose to push one of your fighters one hex so long as they’re the only friendly fighter in that territory when you pick them and they end their push not adjacent to any other friendly fighters.
Three sidesteps a game is an awesome thing to come stapled to your warscroll, even if they’re conditional. You can use this to get onto a token at the last minute. You can get adjacent to an enemy (or away from them), into or out of an edge hex, into or out of a territory, and do all kinds of things to affect what’s about to score in the end phase. The better your knowledge of your opponent’s deck and strategy the more counterplay options open up here. I routinely use this to deny Strip the Realm against Pillage and Plunder opponents, Arena Mortis against Reckless Fury, and manipulate my positioning to score my own Wrack and Ruin cards.
Even outside of scoring considerations, you can set yourself up for subsequent rounds and get somebody into enemy territory to inspire them quickly, close the distance to a fighter you’d like to charge, or back away from somebody to make them charge you rather than stand and swing in the following round. You’ll have to be mindful of the fighter you want to push being alone in their territory in the final power step (so plan ahead) but this is a really fun and powerful ability when you get to use it well.
Vanguard Dash
What a banger. Once per game after your action, teleport one of your fighters into any edge hex. It doesn’t even give you a move or charge token! This is a super powerful ability as well. You can get a fighter almost anywhere they need to be; away from something dangerous, close to something trying to escape them, near a token, you name it. It has to be after your action, so they opponent gets a chance to respond to it, but still quite useful.
I often will activate with a fighter to open the game, say Yurik, then teleport Ardorn or Farasa into enemy territory immediately after. This lets them activate next, starting in enemy territory and inspiring in activation 2. I’ve also had this be a way to set up an end of round slip into an edge hex that’s 1 away from a token/Aqua Ghyranis, then use Alone I Stand to get on that token with nobody able to stop me.
Deadly Sentries
Yet another great warscroll option. Once per game you can add +1 range to any weapon. You need to melee somebody but you’re charged out? +1 range is great. You need to hit somebody but avoid getting a charge token to counterplay Reckless Fury stuff? Here’s an answer for you. You warband is only move 3, but with this alongside the prior abilities nobody is really safe from you. Yurik can even extend his range 4 shot into a range 5, drive somebody back, and keep them from being able to hit you back. It’s glorious. Save this ability for later in the game if you can, but it’s great all the time. It also stacks with other range boosts like the Nexus of Power plot card, so go crazy.
The Raptors of Sigmar
Just when you think the warscroll can’t get any better, here’s the cherry on top. Once per game, after you hit somebody with an attack that leaves them vulnerable, you finish the job. If you’re a little sad seeing no 3 damage on the fighter cards, don’t forget that any attack can be effectively +1 damage once per game when it really matters. Here are a couple scenarios I have enjoyed this one with:
- Take a 2 damage attack up to 3 to get your kill.
- Take a 2 with grievous attack up to an effective 4 damage to get your kill.
- make a range 3+ attack and magically make it 2 damage to finish somebody off and be one of the only warbands capable of that much damage at range
- Your opponent gest a Stand Fast crit that keeps them alive in a desperate situation? No they didn’t. RAPTOR’D
- You’re playing into Grandfather’s Gardeners and they do the BS cycle heal when you should have killed something? Uno Reverse
There are few feelings in the world better than tagging Kro-Jax, Wielder of the Blade, or some other nightmarish fighter and saying ‘and then I’ll tap them for one more with Raptors of Sigmar and you can take them off the board’.
The Emberwatch: Fighter Cards
Ardorn Flamerunner
Sha Boy is your typical 3 bounty Elite leader, so you’ll need to make sure he doesn’t die too quickly. He jumps to 2 shields when inspired and has the beautifully accurate 3 hammers profile on both weapons once that happens, so I try to inspire him early as possible, usually giving him the backfield teleport with Vanguard Dash. A pretty solid all-around fighter with no remarkable traits uninspired.
Farasa Twice-Risen
Farasa looks a whole lot like a clone of Ardorn on their uninspired sides, but she has the slightly worse 3 swords melee profile. This is still useful for grabbing crits/overruns, and she benefits disproportionately from flanking. Once inspired she also goes to 2 shields on defense and gets an extra melee dice while taking a side-graded 3 swords ranged. I like to pretend it’s because her crossbow is holstered and she’ll throw one of her three belt daggers.
She’s a reasonable first or second inspire and can be your utility tool when you need to score cards like Critical Effort or Branching Fate as well as a slightly better token thief. I usually deploy her quite aggressively, to take heat off Ardorn if nothing else.
Yurik Velzaine
Do not be fooled – just because Yurik is toting that huge crossbow, his melee attack is equivalent to Ardorn’s. His ranged attack has the distinction of being able to reach up to 4 hexes, or even 5 with Deadly Sentries if you want to. I find he’s most useful for grabbing a token and taking potshots, and don’t worry about inspiring him most games as he doesn’t get the defense boost. Should you happen to inspire him though, 3 hammers for 2 damage is a solid attack for your ‘worst’ fighter.
Potential Pairings
As I mentioned at the top, this warband has the ability to play pretty much any rivals deck you’d like. While not every nemesis combination is going to be a clean one (and some of those that are good combos might not play well with Emberwatch), your options are about as wide-open as they can be here.
Usually in reviews I talk about how you can maximize the warband with certain decks, but this time I am taking an opposite approach. They work with most things, and there’s only a few that don’t click very well in my experience. As a result, here’s a very short list of decks to consider avoiding:
Edge of the Knife: you have no tempered fighters to start the game, and while you can quite reliably hand out 1-2 damage and temper enemies, much of the scoring will be denied you early on especially if you get your fighters up to 2 shields and inspired.
Deadly Synergy: It’s already hard to be United with a 3-fighter warband, and while you have a teleport in Vanguard Dash, that’s a once-per game way to force that scenario. Then, if you’re United, you’re probably not triggering Alone I Stand. Even if you did, you must end that push adjacent to no friendly fighters, which you may recognize is the opposite of United.
Hunting Grounds: It’s definitely workable, but if you’re spending most of your time in friendly territory, you’re not inspiring and you’re not making use of Alone I Stand.
In Practice
Data from the Nemesis Statistics Project suggest that the Emberwatch are in a solid position. In World Qualifier tournaments, they have a 50.3% win rate over 328 games all edition long, and that jumps to 53.1% if you exclude the overpowered legacy bands. Even in the most recent meta (post-Spitewood drop and subsequent rules/plot cards update), they’re winning 52.6% of the time. That’s well within the ‘goal’ of 45-55%, though in the better half.
I’d also like to suggest that the warband’s truest rate might be closer to the 55-60%, as a big number of newer and/or more causal players take the Emberwatch since it’s in the Embergard core box and is one that’s owned by nearly everyone. I’d reckon without evidence aside from personal anecdote that if they were a separate warband and something else, say the Jaws of Itzl were in the core box instead, they’d perform better due to fewer inexperienced players bringing down the mean. Let me toot my own horn for a sec…
I personally have played this warband 36 times with a 77.8% win rate and an average +4.4 glory differential, which is pretty good. My best results have been with this Blazing Assault/Wrack and Ruin Deck, which I took to a second-place finish at the Tacoma Open Grand Clash last year, going 13-2. It also won me a 2-0 Pink Slips match at Worlds!
I’m not the only one who has figured out they have competitive viability and in many different varieties of deck style.
Kevin did really well at the World Team Championships with Realmstone Raiders and Emberstone Sentinels, writing a love letter for us all.
Andy took the Emberwatch to the 20204 World Championships with Emberstone Sentinels/Countdown to Cataclysm and went 5-5 despite facing pre-nerf Dromm/RF and the like
Fernando of Las Cobras took 11th overall at WTC with this BA/CC deck
This Realmstone/RF build is crazy, but it got 2nd place at the Moscow Team Tournament
Kettil W took this BA/RF build to 5th place at the Copenhagen Clash in 2025, and Lekkit won the whole thing with Emberwatch BA/RF in 2026 and conducted this Path to Glory interview to explain the strategy.
In short, the warband can play tons of different styles and perform very well with many different decks. No matter what you’re up to, the Emberwatch can probably do it.
Wrap
I hope I have been able to convey a sense of how much fun this warband is though this review. You have remarkable mobility, accuracy, range, durability, and can carry the workload with any fighter. Your only real sticking points are lower damage output, a low model count, and the conflicting imperatives of ‘get into enemy territory but also be the only fighter in that territory’. If you manage to navigate that tightrope walk, you can do some incredible things with this warband and have a blast while you’re at it. Every ability is good, they’re all useful nearly every game, and most importantly, they’re enjoyable.
I know you have access to an Embergard core box. If you haven’t given these friends a spin recently, I implore you to try again! Whether you’re protecting the mines or slaughtering the stormcast who are stationed there, I hope you enjoy Spending your Glory.
Spent Glory 
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