Welcome to another installment of Starting Hex, a series about Warhammer Underworlds. This is the next entry in the Hexodus series which was originally kicked off by Davy from What the Hex?!, so be sure to check out his articles in the series as well. Hexodus is a journey through every warband in the game, playing multiple games with a warband and (ideally) painting it if it wasn't already painted. This is a long journey so expect periodic entries in this series for quite some time to come!

Last time, we took a gander at Cyreni's Razors to varying degrees of success. Today, we're continuing the trend by looking at the other moist elf warband, Elathain's Soulraid! Be sure to check out Davy's own take on this warband as well.

Elathain's Soulraid

Elathain's Soulraid has one of the Underworlds models that most Warhammer players are familiar with, even if they don't know anything else about the game. Duinclaw was a meme worthy model that stole the hearts of players everywhere. It is no Cephanyr, but the crab is certainly cool. The rest of the models aren't slouches either and have some of the characterful dynamic sculpts that Underworlds is known for. Plus, they're Idoneth, so there are all kinds of little undersea critters present on the various models. Fuirann even has a little hermit crab on her base!

The fighters themselves are also rocking some really solid stats, both defensively and offensively. Obviously, their inspired stats are going to be better, but due to their inspire mechanic you're going to spend 8 of the 12 turns in each game with the fighters uninspired. Fuirann and Duinclaw and surprisingly solid defensively, Elathain and Tammael can inflict some solid punishment and can threaten range, and Spinefin exists but can serve as an emergency fifth body – I've made a few clutch desperation attacks via suiting up the fish with a pile of upgrades.

Inspired, this warband is just swimming in runemarks. Cleave and ensnare exist in abundance, allowing you to tailor your empowered second round into whatever your opponent happens to be weakest against.

Honestly, just really solid fighter stats combined with a reliable and flexible warscroll make this warband quite a catch.

Previous Experience with Elathain's Soulraid

When doing the initial review for the 18 warbands released with Spitewood, Elathain's Soulraid were pretty high on my list as potential ones to take for a spin. I played against them a bit in practice games leading up to Worlds last year and the hook of my curiosity was set. They certainly have a lot of tools in their tackle box that allow the warband to play a variety of playstyles. I was impressed with their movement tricks, resilience, and surprisingly solid lethality.

I'm still deep in my experiments this year of trying to play things that aren't pure aggro, so I thought this would be a nice next step after my lackluster performance with Cyreni since Elathain and his crew seem to lean toward a flex approach.

Are Mine Painted?

Yes! But not by me. This is a common trend among my warbands but one that's slowly changing.

Elathain's Soulraid, painted by @bourbonbrush

I commissioned an incredibly talented local painter (@bourbonbrush on Instagram) to handle these fighters. I am quite pleased with the end result and am grateful he took the time out of his busy painting schedule to fit them in. Thanks, Dave!

Deck Tech

I wound up playing two different decks for the duration of this experiment. The first was a somewhat unconventional pairing combining Reckless Fury and Emberstone Sentinels. I saw this combo first explored by Skyler (also from What the Hex?!), but have seen other folks trying it in the last few weeks with various warbands. It's an interesting flex build where you have a mix of objectives requiring holding treasures but also making charges. The reward for such an internally divisive playstyle is a massive glory ceiling with the objectives. The version I played could score 21 glory before taking into account any bounty from slain fighters.

It was a really fun deck combo. Despite losing 75% of my games with it, I was enjoying them all. It did feel like a real brain burner and I'm not sure how well I'd fare with it going into an event with multiple best-of-three rounds in a day, though.

I wanted to try out the more common Blazing Assault with Pillage & Plunder combo next, since that's what multiple Elathain players took to Worlds and did well with. I tinkered with a few versions, but they were all very similar to the two versions at Worlds that were played to second place by Michael (aka Vintro) and made top 16 by Jesse. Both of these players also answered some questions I had while I was exploring, so I'd like to once again shout out how great the competitive Underworlds community is. We may not be numerous, but on the whole it's such a lovely and helpful group of folks.

Games Played

Game 1: Elathain's Soulraid ES/RF vs Jaws of Itzl BA/PP. Lost 13-15

My first opponent was someone who was quite familiar with Soulraid, so I knew I was in for a difficult match because he could leverage his experience against me. However, since I brought ES/RF, I was deploying far more aggressively than I think he was used to. I had the majority of my fighters up on the front line. I was able to exert decent pressure throughout the match. I even had a glorious 7 hex charge from Elathain into the Sotek's Venomites to raise Tammael. I had a solid lead until the very last activation where a clutch Illusory Fighter and Scream of Anger managed to get a beefy Kro-Jax right next to my Elathain to not only finish him off when I thought he was safe, but also deny my Unrelenting Massacre for a 5 point glory swing.

Game 2: Elathain's Soulraid ES/RF vs Gnarlspirit Pack BA/DS. Lost 4-14 (called it at the end of round 2)

Hoo-boy. This series sure is netting me some of my worst games in my entire history of this game. I made a terrible mistake early game by charging Fuirann onto an Aqua Ghyranis token and Tammael onto a treasure token instead of swapping those around – it meant the Unassailable surge in my opening hand rotted there for 8 full turns because every time my opponent went after one of my fighters on a token, they were either driven back or slain. My opponent also expertly played around Unrelenting Massacre and Arena Mortis.

Game 3: Elathain's Soulraid ES/RF vs Rippa's Snarlfangs DS/RS. Won 22-14

Things felt like they clicked for me in this game. I was able to get the ball rolling with some early scoring and it felt like the stars just aligned in terms of being able to pull off the flex gameplan. My opponent playing Raging Slayers certainly helped in some aspects, because they were already incentivized to charge which helps a lot with some of the Reckless Fury objectives. I started to feel like maybe this could work out after all.

Game 4: Elathain's Soulraid ES/RF vs Shadeborn RS/RF. Lost 17-18

This was a close one. Even though I lost, it felt like I was starting to warm up to the deck combination and see how it could work. Juggling the different goals between the decks while still trying to find the ways to make them overlap enough to score my objectives. I felt like I was spinning multiple plates, but at least I wasn't dropping all of them on my head.

Game 5: Elathain's Soulraid BA/PP vs Zarbag's Gitz DS/PP. Won 22-17

I did want to at least try out the other popular flex deck combination, so I stole a list from Worlds and gave it a try. Despite making some real boneheaded plays at the start, I was able to win this because the objective deck was just so smooth. To extend the metaphor, this felt less like spinning plates and more like loading them in the dishwasher – it took a little wiggling and figuring out the right sequence, but it wasn't particularly demanding. I can see why multiple Elathain players at Worlds took this pairing.

Game 6: Elathain's Soulraid BA/PP vs Blood of the Bull PP/ES. Won 23-17

I was still getting the hang of the new deck, but my opponent was also trying out Blood of the Bull for the first time so we were both learning. It still felt quite smooth and, despite making a few pretty blatant mistakes, I was able to pull out the win. One thing my opponent noted was that I sounded more confident when making decisions during this game than I had in the ES/RF games I had played against him.

The next six games were all in a day during a clash at my FLGS – don't expect nearly a dozen games with every Starting Hexodus entry, but for now we get to enjoy the treat!

Games 7 & 8: Elathain's Soulraid BA/PP vs Grandfather's Gardeners ES/PP.

These games were a real struggle as I tried to find the right approach. I had learned from playing aggro into Gardeners that they're quite durable and hard to take down, so I initially decided to not put much effort into killing them. This turned out to be a bad call because leaving the bodies there meant taking a beating from the high passive scoring abilities of ES/PP. By the time I realized this, it was too late to claw back the first game. In the second, I went with a more aggressive approach and focused down the 2-bounty fighters in an effort to score a little more glory and make Supremacy harder to score. That wound up working a bit better, but it was still a close and hard fought game.

Games 9 & 10: Elathain's Soulraid BA/PP vs Zarbag's Gitz DS/CC

Coming from trying to kill the absurdly durable Gardeners to a field of squishy Gitz was quite the shift. It was a pair of bloody games without many fighters remaining in the end. My opponent had some cursed dice during two Sunder the Realm attempts across the games which also contributed to the end results. In the end, the Idoneth were able to beat the Gitz into submission.

At least Duinclaw found some friends to play with!

Duinclaw, Bonekrakka, and Gobbaluk hanging out after some games. Crab credit: @bourbonbrush; Squig credit: RJ

Games 11 & 12: Elathain's Soulraid BA/PP vs Gnarlspirit Pack BA/DS

This was a rematch into the same player as my Game 2 earlier where I got smoked 4-14. As you can see, I still lost but at least it was a little closer. In the last game, I deployed much more defensively and there were some clutch moments near the end, but ultimately GSP just did what GSP has done for years – beat the hell out of their opponents.

My overall record was 6-6. Perfectly balanced.

Highs and Lows

There are so many highs to list here. The models themselves look cool (including the meme worthy crab), the fighter stats haven't been outclassed by multiple releases worth of power creep, and the warscroll is packed with tasty abilities.

When compared to the previous entry in this series, Cyreni's Razors, there are a few superficial similarities aside from both warbands being wet elves. Both warscrolls only have a single activated ability and a whole host of reactive, passive abilities. The difference is the impact that each warscroll ability has on the game. Elathain just has substantially more game shaping power with effects like once-per-round Stand Fast, raising an above average fighter, and reliable pushes for two fighters every round. This, combined with their solid fighter stats, made my games feel like they weren't an uphill battle from the start.

All of the abilities on the warscroll felt impactful at various times. The only stinker I could think of would be getting grapple in round three on all my fighters – it's such a niche ability that it has not come up in any of my games so far. Especially when you compare it to staggering enemy fighters (when I remember to, at least) and getting extra movement speed, it pales in comparison.

Elf credit: @bourbonbrush, Gitz credit: RJ

Final Verdict

Overall, this was a fun experience and I plan to play this warband more in the future. They have a lot of cool tricks and are flexible enough to be taken in many directions. Maybe I'll try out some all-out aggressive plan with them in the future and see how many souls Elathain is capable of reaping.

As for the deck pairings, I think the ES/RF experiment was fun and informative. It's a different approach to a flex playstyle with decks that aren't seen quite as much in the meta and certainly not in this combination. I'm still fond of the pairing and want to try it with some other warbands in the future, but once I tried out the BA/PP pairing here it felt like I was just trying to reinvent the wheel.

Ranking: Nine out of ten cans of Old Bay.

I worry that I bullied Davy into back-to-back Idoneth warbands, so the next entry is going to be up to him. Anyone have guesses as to what that will be?

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Tags: warhammer underworlds | Starting Hex | starting hexodus