Today we’re going to be taking a look at the cards for Magore’s Fiends and some Tips & Tactics to using for this warband in your next match.
The latest Shadespire warband to be released is Magore’s Fiends, which include three Blood Warriors and their puppy pal Riptooth. Let’s look at the expansion and see how we can combine it with the core set to create a deck just using those cards.
With Magore’s Fiends, they become inspired when one of their attack actions succeeds, so we are going to focus on a deck that helps them get a successful attack.
Past articles about the expansions and core set.
- Garrek’s Reavers
- Ironskull’s Boyz
- Sepulchral Guard
- Spiteclaws Swarm
- Steelheart’s Champions
- The Chosen Axes
- The Farstriders
- Universal (Core Set)
Magore’s Fiends Only Objectives:
- All the Better to Slay Them (1 Glory): Score this immediately if all friendly fighters (at least three) are adjacent to a different enemy fighter.
- Bane of Champions (2 Glory): Score this immediately if Riptooh takes an enemy leader out of action.
- Bloody Annihilation (3 Glory): Score this in an end phase if all enemy fighters have been taken out of action.
- Khorne Sees Us (1 Glory): Score this immediately if your warband takes two or more enemy fighters out of action in a phase.
- Kill! Kill Again! (1 Glory): Score this in an end phase if at least two fighters from each warband are out of action.
- No Escape (1 Glory): Score this immediately if three or more of your fighters made a Charge action this phase.
- Rivers of Blood (2 Glory): Score this in an end phase if all surviving fighters (at least four) are wounded.
- Save the Best (2 Glory): Score this in an end phase if an enemy leader is the only surviving fighter.
- Show of Strength (1 Glory): Score this immediately if your leader takes an enemy fighter out of action.
Universal Objectives:
- Accept Inevitability (1 Glory): Score this in the third end phase if all your fighters are out of action.
- Chosen champion (1 Glory): Score this in an end phase if a surviving friendly fighter has three or more upgrades.
- Heroic Feat (2 Glory): Score this immediately if a friendly fighter’s Attack action succeeds when their target had two or more supporting fighters more then the attacker.
- Killing Ground (3 Glory): Score this in an end phase if at least one fighter was taken out of action in the preceding action phase in enemy territory, in your territory, and in no one’s territory.
- Massive Assault (1 Glory): Score this immediately if your fighters deal 7 or more damage in an action phase (damage in excess of a fighter’s Wounds characteristic is included).
- Masterstroke (1 Glory): Score this immediately in an enemy fighter is taken out of action by an Attack action made as a Reaction by your warband or a Reaction made by your warband that causes damage.
- Multiple Fronts (1 Glory): Score this in an end phase if your warband dealt damage to three or more enemy fighters in the preceding action phase.
- Poised to Strike (1 Glory): Score this in an end phase if at least three friendly fighters are adjacent to the same enemy fighter.
- Pure Carnage (3 Glory): Score this in the third end phase if seven or more fighters are out of action.
- Victory After Victory (2 Glory): Score this in an end phase if you scored three or more other objective cards in this round.
- War of Attrition (1 Glory): Score this in an end phase if the same number of fighters (at least one) from each warband are out of action.
For our objective cards, we are going to start with Magore’s Fiends only objectives, many of which are score immediately: All the Better to Slay Them, Bloody Annihilation, Khorne Sees Us, Kill! Kill Again!, No Escape, Save the Best, and Show of Strength. This is a good mix of easy to get objectives worth 1 Glory and immediate score as well as some harder higher glory cards. Adding in from the expansions universal cards: Masterstroke, Multiple Fronts, Pure Carnage, and Victory After Victory.
Then from the core set, we are going to add in Annihilation to round out our objective deck. This is a highly aggressive deck, where you want to charge in swinging and become inspired quickly for round 2.
Magore’s Fiends Ploys:
- Blood Frenzy (Reaction): Play this after an Attack action or ploy that takes a fighter out of action. Roll one extra attack dice for the first Attack action in the next activation. Both “Hammer” and “Duel Sword” are successes for that Attack action.
- Bloodslick Ground: In the next activation, enemy fighters have -2 Move.
- Bloody Retribution (Reaction): Play this after an Attack action that takes a friendly fighter out of action. A friendly fighter adjacent to the attacker makes an Attack action against that fighter.
- Continue the Slaughter (Reaction): Play this after an Attack action or ploy that takes a fighter out of action. The first Attack action in the next activation has +1 Damage.
- Daemonic Resilience: The first friendly fighter who suffers any amount of damage in the next activation only suffers 1 damage.
- Fountain of Gore (Reaction): Play this after an Attack action or ploy that takes a fighter out of action. All friendly fighters have +1 Defence in the next activation.
- Furious Inspiration: Choose a friendly fighter. They become Inspired.
- Glory to Khorne: Roll one extra attack dice for the first Attack action made by a friendly fighter in the next activation.
- Horrifying Howl: Choose an enemy fighter that is adjacent to a friendly fighter and push them up to two hexes.
- To the Victor, the Spoils (Reaction): Play this after a friendly fighter’s Attack action takes an enemy fighter with a Wounds characteristic of 3 or more out of action. Draw three power cards.
Universal Ploys:
- Flickering Step: Roll eight dice. Choose a friendly fighter and push them up to a number of hexes equal to the number of “critical” rolled.
- Grapple (Reaction): Play this after an adjacent enemy fighter makes an Attack action that drives a friendly fighter back. Push the attacker in the hex the friendly fighter was driven back from.
- Hidden Paths: Choose a friendly fighter that hasn’t made a Move action this phase and is on any edge hex. Place them on any other edge hex. They are considered to have made a Move action.
- Invisible Walls: All fighter’s Move characteristics are reduced to 1 for the next activation.
- Mischievous Spirits: Taking it in turns with your opponent(s), starting with you and going clockwise, move each objective one hex. Objectives cannot be moved into a hex that already contains an objective.
- My Turn (Reaction): Play this after an Attack action or ploy that damages a friendly fighter. Push them up to one hex and make an Attack action with them.
- Reflected Injury: Choose a friendly fighter with at least one wound token and an adjacent enemy fighter. The enemy fighter suffers 1 damage.
- Second Wind: Choose a friendly fighter that made a Charge action this phase. In the next activation, they can be activated as if they had Moved rather than Charged.
- Tainted Vitality: Remove one wound token from each fighter who has at least one wound token.
- Teamwork (Reaction): Play this card during a friendly fighter’s Attack action, before rolling any dice. Push another friendly fighter one hex.
For this aggressive warband, I am going to focus on defensive and damage ploys so that I can try and one shot enemy models and then survive the proceeding counterattacks.
From Magore’s Fiends Only Ploys: Bloodslick Ground, Continue the Slaughter, Daemonic Resilience, Fountain of Gore, Furious Inspiration, Glory to Khorne, Horrifying Howl, and To the Victor, the Spoils. Then from the universal cards, I am going to take Invisible Walls and Second Wind. This gives me a good mix of damage and defensive tactics as well as some push abilities so that I can adapt to what my opponent is throwing at me.
Magore’s Fiends Upgrades:
- Brutal Charge (Magore, Ghartok, Zharkus): Roll an extra attack dice when this fighter makes a Charge action.
- Daemonic Maw (Magore): Range 1, 2 Dice “Duel Swords”, 3 damage. If this Attack action succeeds, remove one wound token from this fighter.
- Furious Charge (Zharkus): When this fighter makes a Charge action both “Hammer” and “Duel Swords” are successes.
- No Respite (Magore, Ghartok, Zharkus) (Reaction): During an Attack action or ploy that will take this fighter out of action, you can make an Attack action with them.
- Predatory Leap (Riptooth): When this fighter makes a Charge action they can move through other fighters, but their move must end in an empty hex.
- Rage-fuelled Attacks (Zharkus): This fighter’s Attack actions with a Range of 1 or 2 have +1 Damage.
- Shake About (Riptooth): This fighter’s successful Attack actions with a Range of 1 can push the target one hex (instead of driving them back) in addition to inflicting damage.
- Trophy Hunter (Magore): When this fighter takes an enemy fighter out of action, gain 1 additional glory point.
- Unshakeable (Riptooth) (Reaction): During an Attack action that could drive this fighter back (whether or not your opponent chooses to do so), you can instead push them one hex.
- Wrathful Blows (Ghartok): All this fighters Attack actions have +1 Dice
Universal Upgrades:
- Dark Darts: Range 3, 3 Dice “Duel Swords”, 1 Damage and has cleave.
- Deathly Fortune: -2 Move, +2 Wounds.
- Ghostblade: Range 1, 2 Dice “Hammers”, 1 Damage. When rolling dice, only rolls of “critical” are successes for the target of this Attack action. This Attack action can never cause more than 1 damage to a target.
- Katophrane’s Gloves (Relic): Cumulative armor that if you have 2 pieces it allows you to re-roll defense dice. At 3 pieces you can re-roll attack dice. At 4 pieces after this fighters action, you draw two power cards. Finally, at 5 pieces you gain 4 glory points.
- Shadeglass Dagger: Range 1, 3 Dice “Duel Swords”, 3 Damage. When this Attack action is successful, discard this upgrade. On a critical hit, this Attack action has +1 Damage.
- Tethered Spirit (Reaction): During an Attack action or ploy that takes this fighter out of action, roll a defense dice. If you roll a “Shield” or ‘Critical” place them on any starting hex in your territory, ignore the damage and discard this upgrade. If you cannot, they are taken out of action.
- The Formless Key: If this fighter is holding an objective in the third end phase, score 1 glory point.
- Trusted Defender: You can reroll one defense dice for this fighter when they are the target of an attack action.
- Unparalleled Strike: Range 1, 2 Dice “Hammers”, 2 Damage. Rolls of “Hammers” are considered to be rolls of “critical” for this Attack action.
- War Cry: When this fighter makes a Charge action, their Attack actions gain Knockback 1 for that activation.
For our upgrades, we are looking for upgrades to add dice to our Attack actions to help make them successful and thus inspire out warband. From Magore’s Fiends only cards we are going to take: Brutal Charge, Furious Charge, Rage-fuelled Attacks, Shake About, and Wrathful Blows. Then from the Universal upgrades, we are only going to take Trusted Defender. Finally, from the core set, we are going to take Great Fortitude, Great Speed, Great Strength, and Total Offence. This gives us a good spread of upgrades across the warband and will help you get all of your models inspired.
There you have it the latest warband from GW that is all about the Khorne goodness and assaulting your opponent. You need to be careful with only 4 models, but if you play your cards right you can outmaneuver and outlast your opponent.
Check out more “newbie” tips for the Hobby
About the Author: Travis Perkins
