Blood and Gold! Welcome to the best army in Age of Sigmar! With 4th edition of AoS chugging along it’s a great time to get into it by grabbing a Spearhead box to try out that fun format, and then build off of it to a bigger 1k game!
With that as our mission today, let’s take a look at the Fyreslayer Spearhead box.
Spearhead Contents
– Battlesmith
– 5 Hearthguard Berzerkers with Flamestrike Poleaxes
– 10 Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Axes
Building the box contents with Spearhead loadouts in mind, we’ve got 490 pts to start with. Halfway there! Now you could buy a second spearhead box and swap out the hero to get close to 1k, but that’s a boring answer, so let’s look at what else we can do.
The 1,000 pts List
Fire and Gold! 940/1000 pts
—–
Grand Alliance Order | Fyreslayers | Warrior Kinband
Drops: 2
Prayer Lore – Zharrgrim Blessings
Manifestation Lore – Magmic Invocations
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General’s Regiment
Auric Runefather (140)
• General
• Ash-cloud Rune
Battlesmith (100)
• Ash-beard
Hearthguard Berzerkers with Flamestrike Poleaxes (260)
• Reinforced
Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Weapons (130)
—
Regiment 1
Auric Runemaster (180)
Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Weapons (130)
—–
Faction Terrain
Magmic Battleforge
What You Need
– Fyreslayer Spearhead box (obviously)
– Auric Runefather on Magmadroth box
– Auric Runemaster
– Hearthguard Berzerkers with Flamestrike Poleaxes
– Magmic Battleforge
– Magmic Invocations
How Much Will It Cost?
There’s some value boxes other than spearhead out there for Fyreslayers, if you can get your hands on the dawnbringers box that’s a good one to sort out infantry needs, or the great Start Collecting box for close to its original price. But that’s all contingent on what your local LGS might still have on the shelf or what you can find second hand, so with the idea of making a buy list anyone could pick up today, here’s where we’re at.
Now in Age of Sigmar 4th edition , some factions have faction terrain and spells that can be summoned to the tabletop. Now fyreslayers don’t use no cowardly magic, they use prayers to Grimnir like true Duardin but that means you’ll need to get the invocations box and the forge (also affectionately known as the pizza oven) to aid your little guys. While not 100% necessary if you’re on a budget, they’ll come in handy for when you want to try out more of the game and definitely something to have in your arsenal when going to 2k points. You can also try and find base sizes that work for proxies to keep balling on that budget, so I included costs for the units and a separate cost for both units and terrain + invocations.
For the UK, you’re looking at £276 straight from GW for everything, or £219.50 for just units. And across the pond it’s more like $450 from GW for all the units plus the terrain piece and Magmic invocations or $358 for just the units.
Good news is the Magmadroth box will build our little foot Runefather as well as a Runeson and Runesmiter, with one of the latter as a potential rider for the Magmadroth, so with all this picked up you’ll have 380-400 points after you build either combo option on top of this 1k list.
The List
Let’s look over what we’ve got and why. I won’t go into the super nitty gritty of the faction, fellow Woehammer writer, and Fyreslayer player extraordinaire Kuhal did a great write-up on the faction and the datasheets when the edition dropped here. Some points change, and bodyguard change options have happened since then, like Field Sergeant helping our mobility issue, but the core of all of that remains the same, so I won’t rehash it here.
The biggest thing is to keep track of your rune activations. That’s where the Fyreslayers truly shine, as much as they appear to be a run and smash army they’re actually a “wait for the right time” run and smash army with some defensive tricks. And just to contradict everything I just said, the battle formation I went with gives all your infantry (this entire list) +1 to hit on the charge, which really increases their output (I did mention timing things right though). Anyway, on to the units.
Auric Runefather
That’s right, Kingdom Hearts fans, that’s not a key sword, it’s a key AXE, and it hits like a truck. The Runefather is the lord of the Fyreslayer lodges, and he shows it with his whopping Rend 2 Damage 3 weapon. Aside from fun smashing times, he’s here to dish out buffs. Commanding presence gives nearby infantry an increased control score depending on the game round. This can seem just ok in early rounds, but later on, it can come up clutch.
His other big deal is the Royal Retinue ability. At the start of the game you pick a non hero unit in his regiment (so the berserkers or vulkites) to add 1 to hit rolls and both the unit and this might hero get a 4+ ward as long as they stay together. I normally put this on the berserkers to give them that extra killing power, but they get a ward buff being near a hero anyway so sometimes getting that extra protection on your vulkites can make those naked guys even harder to shift.
In this list he’s also equipped with the Ash Cloud Rune artifact, giving a once per game “you can’t shoot my footslogging dwarves” aura to help you close the distance before cowardly ranged units (*cough* ELGI *cough*) can rain death on you.
Battlesmith
Coming in from the spearhead box is the battlesmith, a nice buffing piece with a high control score to hold points behind some helpful units and bring them back with extra rally dice to keep the pain train chugging along thanks to Bard of the Lodge.
Giving off an aura of ignoring negative modifiers to control score is just icing on the cake, especially if you overlap it with the Runefather’s ability to increase it.
I gave him the Ash-Beard heroic trait to make him a priest since he’ll be near the action but not right in it, hopefully helping rallies out and giving -1 to wound prayers on your dwarves, but there’s a good argument to giving it to your Runefather so he gets prayers or the Runemaster to get better at praying.
Auric Runemaster
Speaking of, this guy will be one of your best buddies as you grow your fyreslayer army. He’s a 2 chant priest, which is great for your zealous slayers, but also, every time you successfully get a prayer off, he builds a “good job” token (even for magical intervention). Once he gets to 3, you can spend them and those nice rune buffs you get go into overdrive for a second. Knowing when and where to spend those tokens is key to getting the full punch out of your little guys. Keep him by the forge for a +1 to those chants so he’s even better at his job, and lets him unbind 1 spell as if he were a wizard, something your army doesn’t have.
Hearthguard Berzerkers with Flamestrike Poleaxes
These guys are your hammers, and I like to have the unit be a reinforced one of 10 to help survivability and to give them extra punch. The broadaxe variant is also great but I’m working as if you built them as the Spearhead format recommends.
Either way they’re still share Duty Unto Death, giving out a 5+ ward to themselves and any hero they buddy up with if they stay nearby, and the crit mortals with damage 2 is sweet. The mortals at the end of the turn is just gravy in the unlikely event you didn’t finish something off in the first swing.
Vulkite Berzerkers with Fyresteel Weapons
Finally, these little guys are your objective takers and battle tactic go getters in this small list. It’s tough with how slow they can be but they do pack a punch if they make contact with something and help fill out the board with some of your dudes which is why I left them as two units rather than reinforced for the 1k list.
Normally I prefer the sling shield variant and reinforcing them to a 20 man (or dwarf) unit to make them a real nuisance but as to unit size, I covered that, and Spearhead format again has them built as dual axe wielding maniacs, and who am I to argue with that.
By the fires of Grimnir!
This should be a great foundation for your Fyreslayer army and includes a lot of key units we’ve seen for full 2k 4th edition lists. Once you get some more games under your belt you might see some changes you’d make (if so let me know!) or see what cool things you can add to make it to a full 2k (try the magmadroths out, trust me). Either way, I look forward to seeing a new Runefather across the table from me at some point!
KHAZUKAN KAZAKIT-HA!
