One of the warbands I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, has been whether the Questor Soulsworn.
I’ve always loved this warband – both in terms of their style, how much fun they were to paint, and how great they are to play. I think they’re my favourite SCE models and for a chunky 6-man team, they’ve got plenty of combos and tricks up their sleeves.
They’re also a great team to hand over to new players, as well as one that a more experienced player can use to get up to all kinds of nonsense.
In other words – love them.
However, when it comes to listbuilding, they’re probably one of the warbands I’ve spent the list time thinking about – if at all.
Questor Soulsworn as Allies
Don’t get me wrong – Questor Soulsworn make for great listbuilding pieces in other warband’s lists.
Whether it’s being the tanky friend for a band of Lumineth Realmlords or just another Stormcast model in a sea of Thunderstrike or Sacrosanct chamber dudes, they work pretty much everywhere.
Their stats make them very survivable, they’re good at killing other mid-tier units or chaff, and the abilities they bring are some of the best and most reliable doubles out there.
In other words, near perfect allies.
Questor Soulsworn with Allies?
The bigger question is whether or not it’s possible, feasible, or even advisable to do any listbuilding inside the Questor Soulworn warband – and I don’t mean, picking which of our six possible questors to bring, I mean by bringing in friends from the outside.
For most of their run up to now, I would normally say nope, don’t do it – keep ‘en pure.
As a pure warband, they’ve got great synergy with one another, have tons of survivability, and can deal out plenty of damage too.
Any piece who could even fit in would likely either reduce them down to 5 units (too few) or just be an equivalent to something they already had (like more Stormcast meat).
Honestly, that wasn’t much of an issue. Their only real weaknesses in more competitive play are their low numbers and vulnerability to “can opener” units like Fomoroid Crusher, Megaboss, and other chunky dudes who live and breath to crush valuable models like the SCE.
To further complicate things, and give us less of a reason to bring in friends, the Questor Soulsworn got a massive buff lately in the form of their faction specific Battle Trait.
A Battle Trait to Live and Die For
Battle traits were introduced just the other month and have the potential to make us rethink how we listbuild.
While the whole list is a definite mixed bag, with some truly awful ones (sorry, The Jade Obelisk) some teams also got amazing ones. And the Soulsworn were one of them.
The nice surprise our Questor boys got was this one below – and which adds an interesting answer to the most common new player Warcry question I hear:
“Can I use multiple abilities each activation?”
Well now, you can, and should.
I’d call Heroes Without Limits game-changing, but it doesn’t fundamentally alter the way the Questor Soulsworn are played so much as it jacks them up on steroids.
Never again will we groan over getting 3 doubles on Round 1 with two dudes on the board, or in that last round when we have two stragglers left from the team.
Now our Questor Soulsworn are gonna be bunny hopping, assisting, smashing into opponents, and bonus attacking like crazy.
I love it – and would almost go as far as saying it’s too powerful.
Almost.
Realistically, this Battle Trait gets rid of one of their weaknesses almost entirely – having too few bodies/activations. Now they can activate to their heart’s content.
It also makes running a pure warband very viable for competitive play, even against 7-Man Thunderstrike Lists which could usually take these dudes head on in more serious play. Now the field is much more even.
So, considering that this trait is only usable when running a pure Questor Soulsworn warband, this pretty much closes the door on any discussion of bringing in any allies right?
Right?
Introducing the New Knight-Questor
After a slow afternoon at the office, I happened to find myself scrolling through the Stormast Eternals Thunderstrike Chamber to belatedly check out what their new range of models looks like in Warcry.
That’s when I came across a very strange – but also very interesting – new model for the Thunderstrike SCE.
Meet the new Knight-Questor.
I say “new” because I’m fairly certain there was a Knight-Questor previously who happened to be so unremarkable that I’ve forgotten everything there was about the piece.
This time around, he’s a 175 point leader in the Thunderstrike Chamber that on paper looks pretty run of the mill for an SCE leader model.
Lots of wounds. Decent toughness. Okay attack profile.
However, he also has a fantastic ability that benefits precisely no one in that same SCE chamber (himself included).
Instead, it benefits the Questor Soulsworn exclusively.
Holy smokes. For a double, you get to either A) pick one target who becomes a punching bag (and even more so if any Questor Soulsworn model also uses Onslaught) or B) an objective that will be much easier to claim and hold.
Our Knight-Questor is a funny guy then. As his symbol suggests, he’s designed to act more like a packmaster to a Questor Soulsworn warband than to serve any purpose in his own faction of origin.
The remarkable thing about this ability, however, is that is addresses very precisely the two weaknesses of the Questor Soulsworn:
- Low unit count – meaning it’s tough to put enough bodies on objectives.
- Easy prey to can openers – who could pick them off with ease.
The first weakness is easily addressed, but so is the second.
One of the advantage beefy can openers have is that they have MASSIVE hit points.
Units like the Fomo and the Megaboss, can waltz over to most targets and crush them with impunity – simply because they can soak up so much damage.
Now, tagging one of them as the Quest means that all the rest of the Questor Soulsworn will have a slight advantage they didn’t have when fighting them previously.
It won’t necessarily deter the opposing player, but it will require they think twice about charging at 2 Questor units at once now – especially if they can hit back substantially more.
As far as allies go, this one seems ready made for the warband – being able to pluck out on Questor and easily tag him in for something like:
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Warband Roster
1,000pts | 6 fighters
- Knight-Questor (175pts, Hero)
- Questor-Prime (170pts, Hero)
- Errant-Questor with Grandhammer (165pts, Hero)
- Errant-Questor with Grandhammer (165pts, Hero)
- Soulsworn Knight-Relictor (165pts, Hero)
- Errant-Questor Duelist with Twinblades (160pts, Hero)
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Generated on Warcrier.netOr realistically, you could swap around a couple of the 165 point Questors to be whatever you prefer.
Is it better to ally with Knight-Questor or keep it pure when listbuilding?
The million dollar question now is the one above. Is it wiser to forfeit the epic Battle Trait for a dude who can help the team overcome a disadvantage in a match – or is it better to stick to what they do best?
I unfortunately don’t have the answer yet – but I’ll look to update it once I’ve had a couple of games with each (if I get so lucky).
Instead, here are some things to consider.
If you go the Heroes Without Limit battle trait route:
- You’re gonna need a lot of doubles. These guys were double-hungry before, and are known certifiably ravenous for them.
- Fortunately, doubles are not all that hard to come by (especially if you’re like me and seem to roll 2 to 3 of them every battle round… and haven’t seen a natural quad on my side in months).
- Most of their doubles are better than their triples or even Quads for that matter.
If you go allying with the Knight-Questor:
- You’ll get to pick how you use his double after the match starts – which can be HUGE. If you get stuck against a 11-man team fight for objectives, you know what to pick.
- Other ability-wise, the model is substandard compared to the Questors – missing out on their plethora of powerful doubles.
- He does come with more hit points, so he can tank a bit better than the others (and is arguably more expendable after he pops his double).
I suspect if you know who you are up against and what kind of scenarios to expect, you will want to tailor your choice around that. Both “listbuilding” routes seem viable for the Questor Soulsworn, so it could also come down to your preferred play style and matchups.
