Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire – Magore’s Fiends

The last duo of the Shadespire warbands I'll cover will be Magore's Fiends and the Farstriders, beginning in today's review with the Fiends. These kits stay with the factions that introduced the first season of Warhammer Underworlds, Stormcast and Khorne followers.

Magore's Fiends are a warband with 4 miniatures, three Blood Warriors and a Flesh Hound of Khorne. The warband supplement from the first season Shadespire costs 22.50 EUR incl. the Underworlds content or 20.00 EUR as an Easy-to-Build kit. This box covers two blood-red pre-coloured sprues, a card deck and brief instructions on the assembly.

The card deck covers 64 cards, 4 cards for the warband itself, 29 are unique cards for the Khorne warband and 31 universal cards (split across objectives, upgrades and ploys) to be used with any Warhammer Underworlds warband.

The sprues are pre-coloured as mentioned above, in a dark red tone. That colour absorbs some of the details on the pictures, but I can assure you, it is on the same level as with the other / non-coloured plastic sprues by Games Workshop. Casting is good and the sprues are very much filled to the limit. All the Underworlds miniatures are push-fit, so you do not need glue to assemble them. With some of the tighter fits, it might be a good idea to use plastic glue any way.

The leader and name giver to the Fiends, Magore Redhand himself, is a four part miniature. He has a gaping maw on his belly, which is interestingly sculpted. He carries a daemonic axe, that gives him cleave and he has an Orruk skull in his off hand. The mutation and the posture make him a convincing leader of a Blood Warrior warband. Inspiring the fiends is rather easy, all they have to do is run a successful attack action. That is very viable for an angry horde of Khorne worshippers. Whereas you can't really speak of being inspired, it is more being blood frenzy. They gain +1 on their movement, and in case of Magore and Riptooth cause one more point of damage.

Riptooth is a huge Flesh Hound of Khorne, somewhat of a companion to Magore. He is the fastest model of the warband and after becoming inspired, he can move up to 5 hex fields. With this tooth & claws, he generates quite the amount of damage, with the option to cause cleave. The pose is similar to the one of the Flesh Hound from the 1st edition Age of Sigmar starter box, as you can see below in the scale comparison pictures. I like the idea of a "pet" companion within a warband. Something we surely will see in Season 2 of Warhammer Underworld, Nightvault.

The two Blood Warriors that follow Magore, have an identical load out on the weaponry, Ghartok Flayskull and Zharkus, both have a goreaxe and a gorefist each. Interesting aspect of the gorefist, it gives the model armed with it the possibility to react with a counterblow. And with the condition for being inspired by a successful attack action, that rule is a useful part of the tactics. Zharkus and Ghartok both benefit from a +1 to movement when being inspired, as well as an additional die on their attacks, but not the additional damage point like Magore and Riptooth.

Otherwise, simple two part assembly. An open pose, simply screaming "Come at me!".

Zharkus the Bloodsighted is stat-wise identical with Ghartok. On the card it says he wields a heavy goreaxe but it has the same values as the regular one on Ghartoks character card, but gains driven back 1 as an advance for being a great goreaxe.

And the assembled warband of four disciples of Khorne.

A comparison with the Khorne miniatures from the regular Age of Sigmar range. The Blood Warriors are taller and bulkier than the Reavers, as you can see from the second picture. Not yet as tall as the Stormcast, but closely. They fit very well with the existing range, as the design is continued and gives you additional poses.

The card deck included with Magore's Fiends can be looked up in the card library on the Underworlds Community page. As well as some suggested popular and effective deck builds from tournaments (called Grand Clash in the Underworlds setting). You'll find the ATC Grand Clash 2018 winner build there.

Magore's Fiend is an aggressive warband, similar to Ironskulls Boyz. As they have similar profiles, they can be rated somewhere between the Reavers and the Stormcast. The difference is that the Orruks need to be wounded and the Fiends need to make a successful attack. But due to the improvement in movement, in comparison the Fiends are more pro-active, better fitting to their blood frenzy playstyle. And you should build your deck around that. Anything that benefits from or initiates the attacks is a good thing. They are not a slow warband, especially with Riptooth, go for cards that score when you're in enemy territory, when you wounded an enemy and so on. Due to the proximity in play style, combining this deck with some of the cards from the Ironskulls expansion will be beneficial.

And the assembled miniatures in the photo box.

Conclusion
If you like an aggressive gameplay, but the Reavers are too fragile for your taste, the better armoured Blood Warriors of Magore's Fiends will work for you. The condition for being inspired is not as hard, compared to other warbands like the Chosen Axes and the design of this small warband is appealing.

At 22.50 EUR the price is reasonable. There used to be Easy-to-Build Khorne Blood Warriors at a very low price, but they were dropped, so you cannot compare these. 10 Blood Warriors are 49 EUR, so 20 EUR for 4 is on eye-level. Magore is smaller than Korghos Khul, so you could use the models as a budget solution compared to the 32.50 EUR character box (that is repurposed from the old Age of Sigmar starter kit). But if you're looking to get into Age of Sigmar and do not care about the Underworlds content, the Start Collecting Box of Goreblades Warband maybe more expensive at 65 EUR than the Easy-to-Build kit, but offers you a lot more content.

Production quality is top level. A crisp cast of pre-coloured plastic, the fit was good and the poses are quite dynamic. Magore and Riptooth make for a good character duo for a regular Khorne warband, the other two are a bit generic, to close to the "old" easy-to-build Blood Warriors to really pop-out. Could be more like the Aspiring Deathbringer or catch more of the flavour of the Gorechosen board game. But at 20 or 22.50 EUR, even if you just count in Magore and Riptooth that is cheaper than the other single frame characters at 23+ EUR. Rule wise and from the idea on how to inspire them, the warband is spot on, just the models feel a bit like simpler re-poses of the already available digitally sculpts.

Warhammer Underworlds is a brand by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.