Warrior Analysis – Quick Fang Stalkers

Better known as; I want my meta to stop playing one-wound infantry – Melee Edition.

While I’m sort of joking, I’m also sort of not. The first units released for the Shadowflame Shard set a definite tone in infantry hate, and it’s the kind of thing that can shift your local meta in a way that makes them go from great to mediocre, or worse, in a hurry.

Unfortunately as Mark 4 has continued to evolve, with more models being released, the Stalkers have found their niche role increasingly fading in relevance. The appearance of Talon Lashers did them no favors either, giving us a more flexible replacement in-faction.

Still, I am fond of the little guys, so let’s take a nice look at them.

Base Rules and Stats

Rating: A–

I mean, if they had native Blast Resistance, they’d be about perfect for light infantry. I’m not joking either. These guys hit every mark in their base stats, and come with a pair of extremely powerful abilities.

So, those base stats. Speed 7? Fantastic for a unit. Mat 7? Good as you’re going to get outside of characters. Defense? 14 is damned good, and one off of the highest you’re likely to see on infantry. Armor? A mere 12, but they’re one wound infantry. In the modern game, if such models get hit, they die 90% of the time, so armor is honestly pretty irrelevant.

Now, looking at all those fun icons, because boy do these guys have a lot of them. In order: Unstoppable, Stealth, Soulless, Pathfinder, Ambush, and Advanced Deploy.

Yeah, they really do have all of those.

So, starting off, Unstoppable. You can’t jam these guys at all, because they’ll just wander off and start knifing people. It pairs extremely well with Acrobatic, the first main rule on their card, which lets them simply move through other models without penalty. They also ignore intervening models when declaring their charges, so they can get into some really nasty positions very easily.

Stealth? The real reason they survive most of the time, since it protects them from most incidental shooting. Soulless and Pathfinder are usual for the faction, leaving you with Ambush and AD.

Now, being real, Ambush is pretty useless in it’s current form unless you’ve got a ranged attack, and these guys don’t. You’ll be Advanced Deploying them to get them up the table that much faster, and also counter-deploying them to go after their favorite prey.

That prey being other one-wound models, thanks to their last rule: Anatomical Precision. Unless you’re up against the undead or machines, these guys will always do at least one point of damage, and stop enemy tough rolls. A great rule that pairs well with their speed, attacks, and acrobatics.

Melee Weapons

Rating: C–

All right, I gave them their huge bonus points for Anatomical in their stats, so I can’t give it here. Their base POW is a pretty pathetic 9, and even having combo-strike only gets them up to 13.

Their main gimmick is having two melee attacks, which sadly isn’t rare on light infantry anymore. Still, it does allow them to absorb losses and still be able to take out enemy light infantry fairly easily, and Combo-Strike can let them at least do some damage to harder targets.

Command Attachment

Rating: A

Sharing an attachment with their Wind Striker kin, Stalkers can take the Quick Fang Master; an outstanding utility model that… well, really wishes it was a solo instead.

Sharing the same statline, the Master also has Sacrifical Pawn [Quick Fangs], which is a pretty niche ability on a stealth unit. While it does help once in a while, he’s more likely to get taken out by AoE effects, or simply be the last man standing.

Trading having two attacks and Combo-Strike for one Weapon Master attack at Pow 9 is a bit of a downgrade, to be honest, but you’re taking him for the fact that he has Dual-Attack and a Grenade.

His Blight Bomb is a range 6, pow 12, AoE 1, and comes with three shot types;

• Incendiary: Sets the targets on fire. Probably the one you’ll use the least.
• Black Oil: Blinds your targets, which is the one you’ll use the most, because that -4 defense hit can really set things up for you.
• Rust: If you’re playing against Warmachine armies, this is a great attack type to have, alleviating a lot of Khymaera’s lower base power without needing to dip into your limited pool of buffs.

If you’re taking Quick Fangs at all, you should strongly consider adding a Master to the unit.

Warlock Tricks

• Shyryss; Sadly our dancing dragon queen doesn’t really do much to help out her fellows. Her feat can help by granting Dodge, and stopping charges, but usually these guys die to blasts or AoEs, and she can’t help with that.
• Rassyk; None of his Battle Plans really aid them, and no one sane would let them utilize his feat to auto-kill enemy infantry on your opponent’s turn.
• Nyxyan; Prey on her feat turn can get these guys up to respectable combo-strikes, but honestly she’s better off buffing other units.
• Kyrrax; They do have a pretty good bit of play with Kyrrax’s feat. Combining Acrobatic with the free move and attack, along with two base attacks to begin with, these guys can really tear apart a flank if their favored targets have been forced to group up due to terrain or objectives.

Other Synergies

Stalkers are basically a textbook melee screening unit. They move ahead of your army, looking to engage and pick off enemy skirmishers. If the opportunity presents itself, they’re also fantastic at diving in to try and cut out support models that thought they were safely screened.

What they don’t really need is buffs from fellow units, nor do they really provide any beyond their board presence.

Rack Spell & Card Synergies

Two spells jump off the screen, and a third is merely nice to have, though likely better applied elsewhere.

1. Exarcation of Blackest Knight. Because, I mean, come on. Def 14 is good, Def 16 is better. It does require your Warlock to be rather close, but terrain can help shelter them, and lets you position your Stalkers to best dive in when it matters.
2. As all Warriors do, Stalkers like Dash. Speed 8 puts them into Cav-charge ranges, even with only a 1″ melee range, or make their walking threats simply hilarious when combined with acrobatic and the new unit placement.
3. Finally, Silence of Death isn’t useful for Take Down, but +2 POW is +2 POW. It gives them better odds of hurting heavier infantry or light jacks/beasts if they’re all you’ve got to deal with the problem.

Cards wise, the easy grab is Hit & Run. The one thing Stalkers really lack is Reposition or Sprint, so giving the former to them so that they can dive further into your opponent’s army is an easy decision if you can’t decide on a card with more direct impact.

Spotter is always a good play, given their speed and advanced deployment, giving you a nice RAT buff to targets within 5″ of them.

Common Mistakes

Putting them near anything that ignores stealth. And I mean anything. Sprays and AoE’s will eat these guys alive regardless of their defense, so use that Advanced Deployment to make sure they’re nowhere near anything that can trivially remove them.

Also, don’t be afraid to simply run them one turn after another if it means getting them around a flank and into your opponent’s backfield. If they don’t have any easy targets for the Stalkers to hit, and if you don’t need them on an objective, forcing your opponent to waste attacks or see their support models get mobbed is a far better use than charging heavy armor and praying for some spikes on Combo-Strikes.

Conclusion

Quick Fang Stalkers are a unit that is far better on paper than in reality. Utterly fantastic in their role, that role is one that has virtually vanished from many meta’s thanks to the proliferation of multi-wound models with decent to good armor.

With Stealth a far more situational defensive ability as well, and you’ve got a very fragile little unit with few ways to make back even their cheap points. Bringing a Master gives them more tactical options, while also making them a higher priority target.

At 75 points, unless your meta is overrun with 1 wound living infantry, I’d leave them at home. At 100, a unit can provide some decent service, if you’ve got the points for them, but I’d never take more than one unit.

While they’re more flexible than Quick Fang Strikers, and are still able to do a bit of work outside of their niche… they’re in direct competition with Talon Lashers, who do a similar job but are far better at it.

Rating: D+

With attachment: C

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