Vulkyn Flameseekers in Warcry: Too Hot to Handle?

Here is my complete guide to The Vulkyn Flameseekers for Warcry. See below for the YouTube version but if reading is more your thing then welcome and lets go!

Reaction

The Vulkyn Flameseekers reaction, Runic Flare, is shared by a number of factions already in game including Seraphon. It allows the user to turn up to two attacking crits into normal hits instead. I've used it to good effect on units such as the Seraphon Bladeborn to extend out the life of your guys, especially when coming up against larger profiles, like 4/8 ogres and smaller 2/5 heroes. Generally speaking, your basic fire slayers are going to put up more damage with an action than they would keep health with this reaction but against those very large fighters, it serves as a decent speed bump to keep those fighters in place for a turn longer then they would be otherwise.

Vulkyn Runefather

There are a couple of different flavors of Runefather; One has the Mastercrafted Bokaz and the other one has the Greataxe. Apart from that, they have very similar profiles. The movement three is shared by all dwarves and a solid toughness 5 and 22 wounds with a lower then average points cost for bespoke leaders.

What you're going to see among all of the fire slayers is that each one of them has a ranged attack which on one hand could be useful due to their slow speed, and once they are on an objective gives them some range projection. On the other hand however, the fact that they have this range attack means that generally they will be paying above points for the stats that they're bringing to the table.

Looking at the differences between the two profiles themselves; the Bokaz has a higher strength and crit damage whilst the Greataxe has more attacks but at a lower strength. When comparing the damage, you can see that overall there is little difference between the two weapons due to the increased attacks on the axe vs the ability to use the wounds on 3+ profile more often thanks to strength 5. Therefore which option you take actually depends on what kinds of enemies you expect to face; If you think you're going to be facing a lot more toughness four, then the strength 5 will be favourable. Alternatively if your playgroup consists of majority toughness 3, you'll be looking for more attacks.

Blazing Impetus

A fighter can only make this ability after making two move actions in the same activation, and then the fighter gets a bonus move action or a bonus disengage action. I think this is very good. It will allow your basic fire slayers to actually get across the board; They only have movement three, but if you throw a double into this they will get to effectively move three times. Or if they move twice to get into combat with a fighter, make their free disengage action to leave, and get around whatever it is that's blocking the way.

Ignite Weapon

Ignite Weapon counts one miss from the next attack action made by this fighter as a critical hit instead. I'm going to caveat this by saying I had to make certain assumptions when doing the maths to try and figure out exactly how this ability compares with something like Onslaught. My assumption was that if we calculate the chances of a miss out of one attack action, and if that chance is more then 0.5, then I am applying the full effect of Ignite Weapon. There is probably a better way to do it but for purposes of this, I think it gives you a good idea of the ability and how it stacks up to Onslaught.

Overall if we look at the numbers, we can see that for the Greataxe, doing an Ignite Weapon and a normal attack, does more damage then a double attack with Onslaught. It looks like Ignite Weapon is worth around 1.5-2 extra attacks in the damage that it brings so it's likely that you will be using it over your other doubles, Onslaught included, when you are attacking.

An interesting point of comparison here between the Greataxe and the Bokaz; We said that when we're just using normal attacks, there isn't all that much in it in terms of damage but once you apply Ignite Weapons, the Bokaz, because it does have that crit of 5, is suddenly very favourable. Despite that, I think because of the versatility of the Greataxe having those four attacks, I'd be looking to use that in my lists and always have the possibility of Ignite Weapons for some serious damage.

Drothblood Thane

The Drothblood Thane, at 140 points with it's good damage profile and defensive stats represents very good value for the Flameseekers. 

It's got its own triple Berserk Rampage; Picking one enemy fighter within range, and rolling six dice. For each result that matches the value of this ability, you allocate a number of damage points to that enemy fighter equal to the value of the ability and one damage point for any other result.

To give you an example; Let's say you rolled triple threes. You'll roll your six dice, and then for each result that equals three, you're going to be doing three damage to your opponent. And for each result that isn't a three, you're going to be doing one damage.

At the very least, you'll always be doing 6 damage to your opponent, even if you don't match your dice value. Looking at the chances of you matching the dice value, there's over an 90 percent chance that you will roll one or two matches when rolling your six dice. This makes Berserk Rampage potentially extremely strong even on an average triple with the potential to do anywhere from 6 to 36 damage depending on your rolling.

I think the Thane is actually one of the stars of the warband, and I'd be looking to take at least one or two in any list that I end up building.

Drothmaster

The Drothmaster's stats are fairly average for the 125 points that you are paying, though 20 wounds is welcome to keep him, alive for a little longer. What he does have is the Creed of Flame triple which, when combined with the Blazing Impetus double, means that your Fyreslayers can potentially get across the board very quickly.

You pick your fighter anywhere on the board more than 6" away from the Drothmaster, and then that fighter makes two bonus move actions or a bonus attack action. And then if that fighter has the Beast Runemark, that fighter makes two bonus move actions and then a bonus attack action.

Being able to target any friendly fighter on the field (Including allies at the time of writing), I think that this is one of the stronger abilities in the list and probably your secondary out for triples after the Thane. Remote action usage is generally pretty rare in games of Warcry but this allows you to double attack with a fighter, and then activate your Drothmaster to have that fighter attack again and kill whatever they are in combat with, potentially before it gets the opportunity to activate itself. I think that for this ability alone it's worth always bringing one Drothmaster, the infinite range and his 20 wounds means that you probably don't need two.

Kyndledroth

This is a dog of the warband. Every warband needs a pet, and the Kyndledroth is this to the Flameseekers. It's fairly average statswise, with it's own ability; Kyndlebreath. You can pick a visible enemy fighter within six inches of the fighter. Roll a number of dice equal to the value of the ability. For each five plus, you're going to allocate one damage point to that fighter and to each other visible enemy fighter within two inches of that fighter.

It's a little bit like the Flame Hurler from the Horns of Hashut but nowhere near as strong. The flamehurler is going to be doing three damage on a 4+ but this will be doing 1 damage on a 5+. Even on a double six, on average we are looking at only 2 damage to the target. I think that you have other outs for your doubles in this warband that are far more important for you to use.

That being said, its M4 and access to Blazing Impetus does mean that it can move a potential 12" across the battlefield in one turn which actually makes for a very good turn 1 objective grabber. If I was going to bring a Kyndledroth, I'd probably bring them in pairs so that your Drothmaster can reliably buff them and to get more out of that movement 4.

Scalebreakers

Finally we have Scalebreakers; the 'chaff' of the warband (though not really thanks to the 95 points). There are a couple of different flavors of Scalebreakers; the Splitaxe and Bokaz. T4 and 12 Wounds is welcome to try and keep them alive a bit longer, especially with their reaction to turn crits into hits so if something that can one shot them does run in, you can always react and survive out a little bit longer.

Similarly with the leader, I would be favouring the Axe over the Bokaz simply for the strength 5 being able to wound on a 3+ more often despite the Flaming Weapon synergy with the Bokaz. Personally I'd be looking at taking the Splitaxe simply because there are only so many doubles that you can roll and you aren't going to be using flaming weapons on everybody.

Aspect of the Scale

The question with these quads is always going to be; Is it better than Rampage? Considering that Rampage is giving you two free actions, Rampage is most of the time going to be better. However, if you do manage to roll a really high quad, there is the potential to do alot of damage with Aspect of the Scale (up to 18) which is almost enough to outright kill most bespoke leaders with 20 wounds.

It is however, alot less damage than your Thane is going to be putting out with his triples so I think generally you're going to be looking at triples over quads when you're going to be playing this warband.

Allies

For allies, it's the usual M3 support out order; Calthia Xandire and the Tempest Eye Oldguard.

Calthia has the opportunity to give a number of friendly fighters either bonus moves or attacks, and the Oldguard gives a number of fighters around him a speed boost depending on the value of the dice. You might think that this is a little bit redundant because the Drothmaster has Creed of the Flame to move things or attack, but I think on earlier turns Swift as the wind is a better triple to be using, simply because it'll be able to buff maybe two or three other fighters as opposed to just the one. It does also have synergy Blazing Impetus to get even further across the board.

Other alternatives again might be the Annihilator with his Meteoric Hammer, the Annihilator Prime or several other Stormcast heroes to get extra damage in the list.

Listbuilding

I actually think Flameseekers as a faction almost have everything in house that they want to do, and due to those high points levels there isn't an amazing amount of scope to get allies in.

Looking at the first list for pure Flameseekers, we are trying to capitalise on your very good Thanes, Blazing Impetus and Creed of the Flame to get them into combat where they can use their damage profile and triple to shift fighters off the board. It's an 8 man warband, so it's not especially small, and tt should have a fair amount of movement tricks in there, so I think you'll be surprised in how quickly it can cross the board.

If I were to expand on that, I'm going to be replacing one of the thanes with an old guard so that we can use that swift as the wind triple. I think that would be very beneficial in this case and I'm going to be using the remaining points to give my thanes the Blessing of Swiftness. This is taken from the Divine Blessing rules that were released in White Dwarf, but essentially Swiftness gives plus one movement to whatever it has at a cost of 15 points in this case. Paying those points per Thane gives them M4 which combined with Blazing Impetus and the aforementioned Drothmaster, allows them to cross the board very quickly.