The Lumineth Realm-lords have a complex relationship with the elemental spirits and the Ydrilan temple is the one tasked to protect the River spirits. To become an Ydrilan Riverblade, one has to go through an increasingly difficult training within the waters of a gushing river and survive waterfall falls, being crashed on jagged rocks by the rapids, etc. In exchange, they learn how to fight efficiently and move as the currents.
The Riverblades are the first Lumineth unit in Age of Sigmar linked to this temple after the already released Mountain and Wind.
Background and Lore of the Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
The Lumineth Realm-lords almost destroyed their realm, Hysh, in a bloody civil war known as Ocari Dara, or Spirefall. After that event they worked in suppressing their own emotions and attune to the elements.
Four temples have been organised to protect and restore specific type of elemental spirits called aelementor, and those who are complete attuned with them are named aelementiri. The Ydrilan are those linked with the River, of which the most important in the Realm of Light is Daixo Whitecrest.
The Ydrilan however don’t stop at the rivers in their native realm, they are also tasked to restore all other spirits strangled by the corruption of Chaos. For this reason, the Riverblades have been tasked to bring back the River Derovar, once one of the most important waterways in the Realm of Beast, Ghur.
Since the fall of the Eye of Chotec, a Seraphon temple-ship, the region known as the Gnarlwood started growing unnaturally as an effect of the power emanating from the ruined Seraphon machinery. The trees inhabiting it, the Gnarloaks, started then to grow and expand strangling the River Derovar until all was left was just trickling streams.
The Riverblade found the mouth of the river and are ready to cast their complex and long rituals, but the presence of the Pyregheists trying to burn the entire region represents an obstacle that needs to be handled before the ritual can be completed.
To become a Riverblade a warrior has to go through a rigorous training where he will learn to master the Nine Currents. Part of the training involves the fighter living in the river and flowing with it, surviving the many obstacles present in the gushing rivers. It is not unusual that this ends with the death of the participant, but those who master the martial form of Ydril’Qar become extremely dangerous fighters, always on the offensive and extremely quick on their feet.
But how do the Ydrilan Riverblades flow on the battlefield? Let’s have a look.
Fighters in the Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
Note: if you haven’t read the basic rules for Warcry before reading this article, it might be helpful to know that the game’s abilities are activated by using 6 dice that you roll at the start of your turn.
If two of the dice show the same value, they can be used to activate a Double ability. If three show the same value, they can be used for a Triple ability, and so on.
So, when this article refers to an ability being a Double, a Triple or a Quad, it refers to this system. It might sound a bit confusing, but takes no time to get used to when you start playing
The Ydrilan Riverblades warband is made of 7 different fighters, of which 3 are leaders.
Pureflood Seneschal
- Pureflood Seneschal with Master’s Blades: 210 points
- Pureflood Seneschal with Ythara Darts: 210 points
- Pureflood Seneschal with Ydrillan Warglaive: 205 points
The Pureflood Seneschal reached the apex of Ydrilan Riverblade training and can now lead a warband to battle. In game, they have three different profiles but they all share 5″ Movement, Toughness 4 and 18 Wounds.
The Master’s Blades is the most balanced loadout with 5 attacks at Strength 4 for 3/4 damage which is a pretty impressive output damage. The Ythara Darts transform the attack in a single 8″ range profile with 4 attacks and 2/3 damage, which is also pretty good. Finally, the Ydrillan Warglaive is a melee weapon with 2″ range, 4 attacks at Strength 5 for 2/5 damage.
The Blades are the most offensive but, having a bit of range, is always useful and the 2″ of the Warglaive allows to attack without being directly engaged, which is always a pretty good buff. The Darts, however, are the only real ranged attack available in the warband.
The Seneschals have access to every single ability of the warband, which is pretty unheard of. Most abilities are movement based, so let’s start from the basic Double shared with everyone, Riverblades: it gives an extra inch of movement and at the end of each action, except wait, the fighter can allocate 1 damage (on a 2+) to a visible enemy within 8″. This is pretty cool as it adds extra movement with some splash damage which can potentially finish off an enemy.
The Triple shared by all Riverblades, Standing Wave Stance, is a bonus which can be claimed as long as in the same activation no move or disengage action is performed (so not before or after activating the ability). In exchange, the fighter obtains +1 to melee Attack and Strength and +1 to Toughness until the end of the battle round.
The warband’s Quad, Boiling Wrath, allows the surviving member of a battle group to perform a number of bonus actions, between move, disengage and attack, equal to the number of members of his same battle group already taken down. This is a strong catch-up mechanic for late game, assuming you do have the right battle group composition and losses. It is also better than the universal Rampage as it allows to disengage and perform the actions in any sequence (Rampage requires first a move then an attack).
Finally, the Reaction shared by everyone, allows to counter-attack an enemy (in melee) by inflicting 3 damage for each 1 they roll when hitting. It’s a bit of a gamble as you’ll not know how many 1s he will be rolling, but more dice the opponent rolls, more chances there are. Of course, a Seneschal will always do more damage with an attack action, unless is going to die before activating, so maybe it’s worth to consider this only for the Stream-runners.
The next Double, Rapids Rising Leap, is shared between the Seneschals and the Crestdancers and allows to move as if they were flying as long as they do not go upwards vertically more than 3″.
The Double exclusive to Seneschals, Whitecrest Strike, adds 1 to the Strength characteristic, which is pretty good for the Master’s Blades and Darts reaching Strength 5.
The last ability of the warband, also limited to Seneschals, is the Triple Release the River, which allows any fighter starting the move within 6″ of the leader to add half the ability’s value (so up to 3″) to their Move characteristic. It can be quite interesting to move around the components of the warband, but it feels there’s really a lot of movement abilities and not many offensive ones.
Crestdancer
- Crestdancer with Twin-spear: 115 points
- Crestdancer with Roped Sickle: 115 points
The Crestdancer is the elite fighter, with same Move and Toughness of the leader but only 10 Wounds. They have two weapon profiles, both melee but with enough range to avoid direct engagement (which helps incredibly survivability): the Roped Sickle has 3″ range for 4 attacks at Strength 4 and 1/4 damage, the Twin-spear has only 2″ range and 3 attacks but base damage 2/4.
They have access to the warband Double, Triple and Quad and a Double shared with the leaders that allows to move like flying. They count as the second highest damage source of the warband.
Stream-runner
- Stream-runner with Crestblades: 65 points
- Stream-runner with Riversteel Weapons: 65 points
The Stream-runners are the novices of the warband and this is reflected with lower Toughness (3) and Wounds (8) meaning they are going to die fast (even if the water stance activable with a Triple may help them).
They also have two weapon profiles: the Riversteel Weapons which have 3 attacks at Strength 3 for 1/3 damage and the Crestblade with 1 more attack, at the cost of less critical damage (1/2). In addition, the Crestblade is the only one that would damage every fighter within 1″ when using the warband reaction.
They are cheap, and this should help to fill the ranks with few of them to sacrifice for the greater good.
Abilities for the Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
- Riverblades (Double, Everyone): Add 1″ to the Move characteristic and, at the end of each action except Wait, on a 2+, deal 1 damage to an enemy fighter within 8″.
- Rapids Rising Leap (Double, all Seneschals and Crestdancers): Can move as if flying but not going more than 3″ upwards vertically.
- Whitecrest Strike (Double, all Seneschals): Add 1 to the Strength characteristic.
- Standing Wave Stance (Triple, Everyone): Add 1 to Attack and Strength of melee attacks and Toughness but this fighter cannot make, or have made, move or disengage actions in the same activation.
- Release the River (Triple, all Seneschals): Add up to 3″ to the Move characteristic of friendly fighters starting within 6″.
- Boiling Wrath (Quad, Everyone): This fighter obtains as many bonus actions (move, disengage or attack) as the fighters from his battle group that have already been taken down.
Reaction for the Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
Introduced in the new season of Warcry, Reactions are things that can be done in certain circumstances, but always during the enemy turn. They cost one action, so they can be used only by fighters that have not activated yet or are waiting. There are 3 universal reactions and one specific to each warband:
Lethal Gyre (Everyone)
- When: During an enemy melee attack action, before the hit rolls.
- What: For each 1 rolled by the enemy, allocate 3 damage to the attacking fighter or to every fighter within 1″ if the defending fighter is a Stream-runner with Crestblades.
Battle Trait for the Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
The battle trait is an addition introduced in Briar and Bone which adds an extra optional rule that affects all characters with the same runemark, without using any ability dice. Each faction has its own but the Grand Alliance one can be used instead:
- Order – Courageous Defenders: When using Take Cover reaction the critical hit becomes normal hit on a 3+ instead of 4+.
- Chaos – Aspire to Glory: Once per battle round, add 1 to the first critical hit from a melee attack from a fighter whose cost is 125 points or less.
- Death- Deathless Minions: Once per battle round, a critical hit to a Minion from a shooting attack is counted as a normal hit instead.
- Destruction – Relentless Destroyers: During melee attacks the target cannot claim the +1 Toughness bonus from cover.
The River Winds Its Way: When a fighter starts on the battlefield floor and within 1″ of a terrain feature, add 1″ to their Move characteristic.
Strategy and Tactics for the Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
The Ydrilan Riverblades are a warband extremely focussed on movement. They start with 5″ movement, which is already pretty good, and then they have 3 abilities (50%) which boost movement in same way plus the warband’s Quad which allows bonus movements and disengagements.
Considering the low cost of their cheapest infantry, the Stream-runners, it’s clear this warband can easily point to flood the board and control the objectives. But can they take down the biggest guys when needed?
Overall, there’s not much ranged potential. Only one leader has an 8″ ranged weapon (with decent damage potential, including the fact that it can be brought to Strength 5 for a Double), while the Crestdancers try to minimise their average Toughness/wounds with a 2″/3″ melee attack which can be further buffed in few ways.
The greatest buff they can receive comes from the Triple (+1 to melee Attack and Strength and +1 to Toughness) but they can’t move, meaning that they need to either set themselves up the previous battle round, or wait the right moment and do in response to an opponent action. Which could be too late as a heavy hitter could take down a Crestdancer in a single activation.
The warband’s Quad is a great catch-up mechanic to fully use the remaining fighter in a battle group that could potentially have been 3/4 people big, giving 2/3 free actions to be used in any sequence. But once again, if all is left is a Stream-runner, there’s limited things he can achieve by himself.
So the greatest damage output comes from the Seneschal, in particular the one armed with Master’s Blades, and the Crestdancer, with a slight preference for the Roped Sickle for the 4 attacks and 3″ range. These will need to be well protected by the Stream-runners to attack at the right moment and hopefully quickly dispatch any opposition. The Crestdancer range in particular allows to attack from behind a friendly engaged model.
Normally you would choose a single Leader and then fill the ranks with the other profiles, but we can see a use for both a melee Seneschal and the one with Darts for ranged support but it would come at the cost of 2 Crestdancers or 1 Crestdancer and 2 Stream-runners.
Overall the warband is an interesting one, with the ability to surprise the opponent with quick movements and sudden surges of damage when the right profile is activated, but it does not have any way to soak up damage. 10 wounds at Toughness 4 are just average, so they are not that bad, but they don’t last long either.
There’s also not many fighter profiles, in the end it’s only 3 of them, and oddly all abilities are available to the Seneschal, meaning there is no specialisation of the other profiles.
From a warband described as an extremely offensive one, flowing with the currents and having the strength of a gushing river they show very little of this and focus more on moving around with some good but fragile pieces.
Pros and Cons of the Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
Pros:
+ Extreme mobility
Cons:
– Little ranged capabilities
– Average defensive profiles
Some thematic warbands for the Ydrilan Riverblades
Just for fun here we present few thematic warbands, meant more for fun or narrative context than for competitive play. Note that in narrative play you need to complete a quest that allows you to recruit a Hero before being able to add him to your roster.
Out of the box: 1 Pureflood Seneschal with Master’s Blades, 1 Crestdancer with Roped Sickle, 3 Crestdancers with Twin-spear, 1 Stream-runner with Crestblades, 4 Stream-runners with Riversteel Weapons.
How to buy a Ydrilan Riverblades Warband
The Ydrilan Riverblades were initially released in the quarterly box Pyre and Flood, but a new individual box has since been released.
A single sprue allows to assemble:
- 1 Pureflood Seneschal (with a selection of weapons)
- 1 Crestdancer with Roped Sickle or Twin-spear
- 3 Crestdancers with Twin-spear
- 1 Stream-runner with Crestblades or Riversteel Weapons
- 4 Stream-runners with Riversteel Weapons
Tips on painting a Ydrilan Riverblades Warband for Warcry
The Ydrilan Riverblades, while being a new faction dedicated to Rivers, are still part of the Lumineth Realm-lords and can be painted using any theme from the main army, usually dedicated to one of their Great Nations like these guides from Warhammer Community for Ymetrica, Syar or Iliatha. Alternatively there’s also a full guide of the Myari Defenders, a Warhammer Underworlds warband.
More specific to the Ydrilan, there’s a great guide using extensively contrast paints from Warhipster.