Guide de guerre des Savagers de Darkoath

The Darkoath Savagers warband are the classic barbarians ravaging the steppes infested by the Chaos forces. If you are interested in Conan look and feel (one of the miniatures is a clear take on Schwarzenegger’s iconic character), then this is the warband for you!

This warband was previously available only Red Harvest box set securing Varanite extraction sites against Tarantulos Brood minions, but it has since been released separately.

What changed in the new edition for the Darkoath Savagers Warband?

As all warbands, Darkoath Savagers saw some point and stats adjustment, notably the Proven and Wraththouched went up to 15 Wounds and they all gained one attack more as few Gloryseekers.

Some abilities changed, so please read the article carefully to see new take on this warband.

Briar and Bone a ajouté un trait de combat optionnel.

Background and Lore of the Darkoath Savagers Warband

Where and how the Darkoath came to be is a mystery lost in time. All is known is that they are some of the most savage and brutal warriors fighting for the Chaos forces and that they take their name from the great oaths they swear to the Dark Gods or patrons.

Some of the most renown leaders of barbarians tribes are Darkoath Chieftains or Warqueens. Darkoath Savagers are fierce warriors always chasing another way to please the Chaos Gods but without swearing allegiance to any one of them in particular.

Their oaths are recorded by the tribal shamans and to not fulfil one is a severe crime punished with death or worse. If you want to keep reading you need to be prepared to swear to the Chaos Gods, and there’s no pulling out!

Fighters in the Darkoath Savagers Warband

Note : si vous n'avez pas lu les règles de base de Warcry avant de lire cet article, il peut être utile de savoir que les capacités du jeu sont activées en utilisant 6 dés que vous lancez au début de votre tour.

Si deux des dés indiquent la même valeur, ils peuvent être utilisés pour activer une capacité Double. Si trois dés ont la même valeur, ils peuvent être utilisés pour activer une capacité Triple, et ainsi de suite.

Ainsi, lorsque cet article mentionne qu'une capacité est un Double, un Triple ou un Quad, il fait référence à ce système. Ce système peut sembler un peu confus, mais il est très rapide de s'y habituer lorsque vous commencez à jouer

The Darkoath Savagers warband is made of 12 different options, of which 2 are leaders.

Abattoir

• Slaughterborn with Greatblade: 180 points
• Slaughterborn with Greataxe: 180 points

The Slaughterborn is the only leader option of this warband but he is a strong leader compared with other original Warcry leaders. With 20 Wounds and Toughness 4, he can survive a bit of heat but what pulls him down is the movement of 4″, that is just average and the same across the entire warband.

There are 2 weapon options to choose from: the Grande lame pour plus d'attaques (5 sur Force 5) ou le Grande hache for more Strength (4 on Strength 6) and damage (3/5 instead of 2/5). Normally we would say more attacks the better, but that minimum damage of 3 on the Greataxe shifts the balance towards it. Against low Toughness enemies they perform similarly so it can be an aesthetic choice as well.

The most important ability that all Darkoath Savagers share is Un vœu accompli. This is extremely powerful when used carefully and worth only a Double: it allows to permanently (for the rest of the battle) to increase by 1 the value of Toughness or Attack/Strength of a weapon profile for each enemy killed during that activation. So basically you can upgrade your units while fighting, making this ability extremely powerful.

Another generic ability common to the entire warband is Deathblow: for a Quad you can add the value of the ability to the hit value of the next melee attack action. You can’t really combine it with the previous one unless you waste a turn with a pause and hope the enemy does not retreat, but it can be useful to get rid of a powerful opponent. For example if you have a high Toughness scary guy, you could use the Slaughterborn with Greatblade a round to kill some low Wounds minions, increase Strength with Un vœu accompli and then face the enemy tank with 6 Attacks at Strength 5/6 and potential 8/11 damage per hit…

The other ability that only Slaughterborns can use is worth a Double and is called Display of Brutality. It allows to perform a bonus move or action after taking down an enemy, but it competes with Un vœu accompli. It may be worth in case you are surrounded, you have already buffed enough your leader, you forgot to activate the other one before taking down the enemy, or if you really need to prevent an enemy from running away and you are running out of actions…

The final mention would be the warband Reaction: Instinctive Dodge. If the enemy scores dangerous critical hits, you have a choice to sacrifice one of your actions to dodge them (on a 4+ for each critical hit) transforming them in normal hits.

God-speaker: 105 ponts

The God-speaker is a strong supporting character. He is the only one with a ranged profile (up to 7″) with 2 powerful attacks for 3/6 damage. In melee he is much less scary with 3 attacks at Strength 3 for 1/3 damage (one of the lowest in the warband) so you may want to avoid him to get too up close. 15 Wounds and Toughness 3 cement this idea.

However this idea clashes with La malédiction du dépérissement, his special abilities that for a Quad can permanently reduce the Toughness of an enemy by 1 for each 6 rolled or temporarily for each 4 or 5 (you roll as many dice as the value of the ability). The enemy needs to be within 3″, so the God-speaker would need to get up close and his ranged attack can be used only if an enemy is at least 3″ away.

While this ability could be interesting, it is expensive (Quad) and we have already established that you have ways to increase your Strength to match enemies with high Toughness and you also have probably one of the strongest abilities in the game available to the God-speaker: Visions of Glory. This ability allows you to generate a lot of wild dice: roll as many dice as the value of the ability and for each 5 or 6 you generate a wild dice, allowing you to control the entire flow of the battle.

Wrathtouched: 105 points

The Wrathtouched is your killing machine: 15 Wounds on Toughness 4, 4 Attacks with Strength 4 and 1/5 damage. While the damage output seems low compared to a cost above average, his Triple, La rage furieuse, allows to do area damage to anyone within 3″ from him: you roll a dice for each enemy and for every 3-4 you allocate 1 damage, for each 5-6 you allocate as much as the value of the ability.

His high number of Attacks make him a useful tool to fish for critical hits, however the basic damage value is the only thing that cannot be improved in this warband, so you may want to enlist just one.

Éprouvé

• Proven with Greataxe: 130 points
• Proven with Greatflail: 115 points
• Proven with Greatspear: 125 points
• Proven with Greatblade: 115 points

The Proven is the elite fighter of this warband. Notably, they do not have any special ability, they can only use the generic ones from the warband (Un vœu accompli et Deathblow) and of course the universal ones. With 15 Wounds and Toughness 4 they can guarantee a bit of survivability but they will not last long. So attack first and hard, improve them and see them shining by the end of the match.

They have all similar costs and differ only for the weapon profile:

• Le Grande hache est le plus dommageable (3/5) avec 3 attaques à la puissance 5. C'est aussi le plus cher.
• Le Grande lame est la plus équilibrée, avec 4 attaques de force 4 (dégâts 2/4).
• Le Greatspear ajoute de la portée (2″), plus de dégâts sur les coups critiques (2/5) et de la Force (5) mais perd 1 Attaque (3).
• Le Grand voile augmente encore la portée (3″) mais, par rapport à la Greatspear, perd 1 en Force et en dégâts critiques (4 et 2/4).

As always from a statistical perspective more attacks is usually better, so the Greatblade is probably our favourite (and the miniature with the Conan-looking pose is definitely one of the best in the warband). The Greataxe is another good candidate because of the minimum damage 3 and the Greatspear is slightly better than the Greatflail because it keeps the enemy at distance with those 2″ range with Strength 5 denting the heaviest enemy armours.

Although that is your starting point, remember each one of them can increase his Toughness, Attack and Strength by 1 each time they kill an enemy and use Un vœu accompli. The Greataxe then becomes the prime candidate to increase Attacks with its minimum damage of 3.

Note that a single box allows you to assemble 2 Proven but you can only choose between Greatspear or Greataxe and Greatblade or Greatflail.

Gloryseeker

• Gloryseeker with Shield: 70 points
• Gloryseeker with Paired Weapons: 70 points
• Gloryseeker with Greataxe: 65 points
• Gloryseeker with Spear: 75 points

The Gloryseekers are your basic infantry and also the cheapest unit in this warband. As the Proven, they also don’t have special abilities outside of those shared by the entire warband and have a similar starting profile with 10 Wounds and Toughness 3.

Having Strength 4 they are actually decent basic fighters, with their weapon profiles differing enough:

• Le Bouclier ajoute 1 à la Ténacité, ce qui les place en paire avec le Prouvé, mais avec des attaques plus faibles (3 pour 1/3 des dégâts).
• Armes jumelées sont à l'opposé, plaçant 4 Attaques dans la mêlée.
• Le Grande hache est celui qui a les dégâts les plus élevés (2/4) mais qui n'a que 2 attaques.
• Le Lance permet une portée de 2″ pour 1/4 de dégâts. Son profil Hache a été abandonné dans la nouvelle version.

The same recommendations for the Proven work here as well: more Attacks means more chances of hitting and more chances for critical hits favours the Paired Weapons. However the Greataxe is the prime candidate to use Un vœu accompli as the damage is the only characteristic that cannot be changed and higher is better.

The Spear is interesting as it compensates the low Toughness with the ability to hit without being engaged. The Greataxe is the cheapest profile in the warband so it can be worth exploring the use of few of them, especially if you are exceeding your point limit by few points.

The good news is that in their box you can assemble 5 of them with a variety of options, only the Greataxe is limited to one.

Capacités pour le Warband Darkoath Savagers

• Un vœu accompli (double, tout le monde) : Si un ennemi est tué pendant l'activation de cette capacité, pour le reste de la bataille vous pouvez augmenter de 1 par ennemi tué la Ténacité, les Attaques ou la Force d'un profil d'arme.
• Visions de gloire (double, orateur de Dieu) : Ajoutez jusqu'à 6 dés sauvages à utiliser à partir du prochain tour.
• Brutalité (Double, tous les Slaughterborns) : Un mouvement ou une attaque bonus après avoir abattu un ennemi.
• Furious Rampage (Triple, Wrathtouched) : Une chance d'infliger à toutes les unités ennemies proches jusqu'à 6 points de dégâts chacune.
• Malédiction de flétrissure (Quad, Parole de Dieu) : Une chance de réduire temporairement ou définitivement la résistance d'un ennemi proche.
• Coup de grâce (Quad, Tout le monde) : Ajoutez jusqu'à 6 aux dégâts de chaque coup lors de la prochaine action d'attaque en mêlée.

Réaction pour le Warband Darkoath Savagers

Introduit dans la nouvelle saison de Warcry, Réactions sont des choses qui peuvent être faites dans certaines circonstances, mais toujours pendant le tour de l'ennemi. Elles coûtent une action et ne peuvent donc être utilisées que par les combattants qui n'ont pas encore été activés ou qui attendent. Il existe 3 réactions universelles et une réaction spécifique à chaque groupe de combat :

Esquive instinctive (Tout le monde)

• Quand: Lors d'une action d'attaque en mêlée de l'ennemi, après avoir vu les jets de touche.
• Quoi ? Sur un 4+ pour chaque coup critique, considérez-le comme un coup normal.

Trait de bataille pour le Warband Darkoath Savagers

À la recherche de la gloire : Ajoutez deux dés sauvages à la réserve après avoir tué un chef ennemi avec une attaque de mêlée.

Strategy and Tactics for the Darkoath Savagers Warband

Darkoath Savagers are an interesting warband with one of the coolest mechanics seen until now, extremely thematic.

Only 3 characters in the entire warband have access to specific abilities, but everyone is able to use Un vœu accompli that for a Double allows a model that kills an enemy to increase permanently for the rest of the battle a characteristic between Toughness, Strength and Attacks.

This is a double edged sword: while at the beginning it can really inspire your fighters and allow you to increase their values while chasing down the weakest opponents, towards the end game you will be facing the harder enemies and you need to rely on Deathblow for some extra damage. If you encounter elite warbands however, it will be much more difficult to get there and you will need to rely on hitting hard and first.

The overall average Toughness of the warband is paired with a decent Wound count (15 for the elite and 10 for the standard fighters).

What can really change the warband behaviour is the God-speaker. You can use him to control the flow of the battle by generating wild dice and ensuring you have what is needed. Your first round should be used with the highest Double that you have for Visions of Glory, and since you are unlikely to engage anyone the first round, you can activate the God-speaker, use the ability, wait, activate again, use the ability again and then move. This way you can generate enough wild dice to last for a while, but if you end up consuming them, you can always trigger the ability again in later rounds.

Why would you need those wild dice? For example to decide who starts first. If you rolled many doubles or above and you don’t have the Initiative, you can use the wild dice to seize the initiative and to ensure you decide who starts. Or you can try to have a high Triple to use the Wrathtouched La rage furieuse hoping in some good area damage.

Conversely, if you don’t care about Initiative, you can convert all those singles in Doubles and try to fulfil as many vows as you can! Careful however: you need first to swear the oath (i.e. declare the ability) and then kill the enemy, not the other way around. Hence it is possible to waste an ability if the Chaos Gods don’t smile at you. Or to kill an enemy with an unexpected critical hit when all you wanted to do was to soften it for another fighter: Chaos Gods can be tricksters.

Once you have established your pool of wild dice, the God-speaker has still some work to do. While keeping him distant enough from a fight, you can use La malédiction du dépérissement to reduce the Toughness of an enemy leader or difficult opponent, so that the others can finish him off. It does cost a Quad so better to keep it if you have not improved your Strength yet.

And if you manage to get a Quad (or a Triple and add a wild dice), then you can have your fighters with the highest amount of attacks try a Deathblow for increased damage output (up to 9 damage on a normal hit from a Proven with Greataxe and a Quad with value 6).

In our experience this is the warband that complements each other better, with a cohesive force with good starting stats and the ability to improve on them. A Toughness of 4 is absolutely average, especially in Chaos, while Strength 4 on the entire warband, including the cheapest fighters, is really rare, making this warband one of the most balanced of Grand Alliance Chaos.

Their survivability is further enabled by their warband Reaction, Instinctive Dodge, that gives a 50% chance to convert a critical hit in normal hit. The good thing is that you can roll for it only after seeing how many critical hits your opponent scored and then decide if you can afford to take the wounds and retaliate the turn after, or minimise the damage.

Movement 4″ is what they are going to suffer the most as there’s no one that exceeds it, but don’t forget universal abilities like Rush (adds 1″ per Movement action).

Careful also with the lack of ranged options: the 7″ of the God-speaker are the maximum this warband can strive for, with a couple of 2″ and the 3″ of the Proven with Greatflail. Do not underestimate the ability to protect your fighters from retaliation with a 2″ range.

Overall this warband will have 9/10 fighters, allowing you to play any type of scenario that you may encounter and are enough beginner-friendly to be recommended to anyone.

Avantages et inconvénients du groupe de guerre des Savagers de Darkoath

Pour :

+ Excellentes capacités
+ Bonne cohésion du groupe de combat
+ Bonnes statistiques d'attaque

Cons :

- Faible mouvement
- Pourrait avoir du mal avec les groupes d'élite
- Capacités limitées en matière de portée

Some thematic warbands for the Darkoath Savagers

Pour le plaisir, nous vous présentons ici quelques groupes de guerre thématiques, davantage destinés à l'amusement ou au contexte narratif qu'au jeu compétitif. Notez que dans le jeu narratif, vous devez accomplir une quête qui vous permet de recruter un Héros avant de pouvoir l'ajouter à votre liste.

Sorti de la boîte : Slaughterborn with Greatblade, God-speaker, Wrathtouched, Proven with Greataxe, Proven with Greatblade, 2 Gloryseeker with Shield, 1 Gloryseeker with Greataxe, 1 Gloryseeker with Spear and 1 Gloryseeker with Paired Weapons, straight from their box (or Red Harvest).

How to buy a Darkoath Savagers Warband

Darkoath Savagers are available in an individual box.

Les carottes permettent de construire :

• 1 Slaughterborn with either weapon option
• 1 God-spoken
• 1 Wrathtouched
• 1 Proven, either with Greatspear or with Greataxe
• 1 Proven, either with Greatblade or with Greatflail
• 2 Gloryseekers either with Shield or Paired Weapons
• 1 Gloryseeker either with Spear and Axe or Paired Weapons
• 1 Gloryseeker either with Spear and Axe or Shield
• 1 Gloryseeker either with Greataxe or Paired Weapons

For a total of 10 miniatures (of which 2 Proven and 5 Gloryseekers). To have every single weapon option for the Proven you will need to have at least 2 sets of Darkoath Savagers, while it is possible to combine the Gloryseekers to have at least one of each weapon option.

Tips on painting a Darkoath Savagers Warband for Warcry

Darkoath Savagers are classic barbarians and can be painted however you prefer. Warhammer Community has some old videos on how to paint the Darkoath Warqueen, the predecessor of all Darkoath barbarians.

If you prefer something more recent, maybe take advantage of the contrast paints like Guilliman Flesh for the skin tone, then Tabletop Skirmish Games has a video on most units, including a Slaughterborn, a Proven et a God-Speaker.

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Autres ressources intéressantes :

• Tarantolus Brood Warband Guide
• All our other Warcry Articles
• Our Warcry Warband Overview