We recently completed a series of posts looking at each faction’s Warlord special rules, and as we’re in the process of adding a new Warlord to each faction, it makes sense to quickly run through all the new characters and the special rules they’re bringing with them.

Aeldari

Fury of the Craftworld – Avatar of Khaine

Every time any card dies – one of your Aeldari cards increases its melee attack by +15.

As with the current Aeldari special rule, only your cards on the battlefield can have their melee boosted by this.

While the obvious tactic is to build a melee focussed deck, the Avatar also works well with ranged or psychic heavy decks – boosting your tough cards’ melee power alongside the melee attack bonus you’re building up by using the other attacks.

Orks

Kaptain Badrukk – Da Freeboota King

Every time an Ork card kills an enemy – that Ork card immediately shoots with 75% of its ranged attack.

This special rule meets our ‘feels Orky’ mandate because it’s potentially very powerful but also quite random.

This special rule is particularly interesting when it comes to deploying your cards opposite enemies with very few Wounds left, because if your card destroys the enemy opposite it with its normal attack, then the bonus shooting attack hits the next enemy along.

Necrons

Imotekh the Stormlord – Phaeron of the Sautekh Dynasty

Every time a Necron card Readies – a random enemy card suffers 20 Wounds.

While the Wounds inflicted by this might not sound like a lot, it’s quite painful to watch your cards being whittled down by ‘free’ damage.
Also, the amount of Wounds this special rule inflicts adds up over the course of a battle, so don’t be afraid to have all of your cards Ready – building up for a later, decisive attack while still inflicting damage.

Tyranids

Specimen: LV-808-WS-δ – Hive Fleet Leviathan Hive Tyrant

At the end of each round of the battle – one random enemy card suffers 10 Wounds.

As with Ghosar’s special rule, this effectively becomes more powerful the longer a battle goes on.

It’s difficult to plan around this bonus damage because you can’t tell which enemy will suffer it (unless you’re down to fighting the enemy Warlord of course). But – like Imotekh’s special rule – it means you’re always inflicting damage, even if your cards are Readying to build up a later attack.

Servants of the Emperor

Commissar Yarrick – Hero of Armageddon

Each time one of your Servants of the Emperor cards dies – one of your random cards Readies. We like to think that this represents your cards rallying to action under the stern gaze of the Commissar (either that or it’s the fear of being executed).

You can influence how useful this special rule is by building synergistic decks, with cards that specifically Ready the attacks you’re going to be using. Alternatively, taking cards which debuff the enemy when they Ready can also be powerful.

T’au

Commander Farsight – Leader of the Farsight Enclaves

When the last card of your deck is deployed – your T’au cards heal to full Wounds and your melee attack Readies 5 times. As with Shadowsun’s special rule, this lets you plan a ‘last push’ of attacks, with your final cards healed and ready to make a powerful melee attack.

An effective deck you can build around this uses ranged cards early to build up a large melee attack bonus, even before this special rule goes off.

Chaos

Ahriman – Arch-Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons

Each time this card attacks, a random card (friendly or enemy) gains +0 to +20 Wounds, or loses -0 to -20 Wounds.

This is the new Warlord we’re most excited (and nervous) about, because its’ special rule is truly chaotic. You can’t plan around it, and it’ll be negative as often as positive, but it’s not going to be boring! We don’t expect to see highly competitive players using this Warlord (too random), but we don’t currently have a Warlord for ‘chaos’ – with a small c – players, so this is for them.

Just remember that for all the times this special rule messes up your plans, there will be times when it destroys the perfect enemy card, winning you the battle in a stroke of Tzeentch blessed luck.

Space Marines

Watch Captain Artemis – Deathwatch Watch Captain

Each time you deploy a Space Marine card to the battlefield – a random enemy card loses 10% of its remaining Wounds

This is an interesting rule, because it’s more powerful the more Wounds the enemy it targets has. This makes Artemis decks great ‘monster hunters’, able to strip huge numbers of Wounds off of expensive cards.

However, it’s much less useful against hordes of small cards, where taking 10% of their remaining Wounds can mean the loss of just a couple of Wounds.

Conclusion

We plan to add a new Warlord to each faction a couple of times a year, but the timing will depend on what our data shows. For example, we may find that too many Warlords in the game overwhelms players with choice (so we’ll slow it down), or that everyone loves new ones being added.

In the meantime you can get in touch with any questions about the new Warlord special rules through [email protected] or our Facebook page.

Thanks,
Stu