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Warcry Listbuilding: Stormcast Eternals Thunderstrike Chamber

Updated April 2 – Added some notes to one of the lists.

Additional update: note that these lists and unit costs reflect the state of the fame prior to the errata release for Warcry on May 09, 2024. That errata offered a substantial rebalancing of SCE Thunderstrike units – particularly, raising the price for Annihilators. As such, please refer to the most recent points values for units in the errata or as reflected on warcrier.net.

The Stormcast Eternals Thunderstrike Chamber is probably the most common faction from SCE seen in Warcry these days, among both competitive and casual players.

Whether it’s spotting them in friendly matches at your local game store, or disproportionately crowding tournament rosters, it sometimes feels like everyone and their uncle has a list of these guys.

Heck, even in our game group, four of us have SCE lists just by virtue of how easy these pieces are to come by.

That in mind, I was thinking of holding off writing about them since there’s been plenty already said about them by some of the other good folks in community.

However, as it often goes with my brain and Warcry, I had a few hours free and ended up fooling around with making lists on Warcrier.net and made notes along the way.

The other factor was the surprising low points tally that one of the lists ended up with at the Golden Troll Warcry Tournament in Montreal where I competed in early March.

With that in mind, similar to how I gave some love for their cousins in the SCE Sacrosanct Chamber recently, I don’t expect this post to be the definitive guide to using this faction, but there should be more than enough here to help you sink your teeth in them and get some ideas for your own lists.

Table of Contents:

Strengths of the SCE Thunderstrike in Warcry

sce thunderstrike models for warcry
A couple of SCE Thunderstrike models lurking near my painting table. Source author’s own photograph and please note my blurry and battered my mobile’s camera is these days.

Let’s start with what these fellows do well (and which there is quite a bit):

  • They’re very beginner-friendly (listbuilding and playing). This might not matter for competitive players, but for more casual ones looking to get more serious they’re a great starting point. A lot of the models are pretty straightforward – move ahead and smash stuff – and are less sweaty when it comes to having room for making mistakes on the table. You also usually only get 6-7 models per warband, allowing newer players to worry about fewer elements at play in their list and spending more time on playing each turn.
  • They’re not easy to kill. This is pretty true for every SCE faction out there. With most units having a baseline toughness of 5 and 20 HP you get a lot of meat per point. This especially matters as most opposing units will not be able to drop one of these guys with a single or double attack action, unless they’re particularly mean (like some Ogor units). This can be really crucial in treasure missions, where your carriers can keep running even after taking a beating.
  • They have some great damage dealers. Being able to take it is one thing, but also give it back in return is something of a blessing. Most of the models in this faction have decent damage profiles that can match or outmatch whatever most opposing models.
  • Plenty of good allies that slot right in. Order is a huge Grand Alliance with tons of factions. There’s plenty of options out there for allies who complement your list (such as from other SCE factions) or can fill in the gaps (bringing more movement).
  • Listbuilding is relatively easy and pieces are plentiful. This one is really great for the wallet, and your own sanity. Getting a good list with Thunderstrike doesn’t require you hunt down obscure Underworlds pieces to tag in as Bladeborn fighters. Most of the baseline units that work wonders in Warcry (such as Vindictors and Annihilators) can be found at pretty much any game store. Heck, you can even make a workable team out of a single type of model (Vindictors – more on them later).

Weaknesses of the SCE Thunderstrike in Warcry

Below are some of the weaknesses and dangers this faction faces.

You’ll notice it’s quite lengthy and probably wonder why bothering with so many downsides out there, but the important thing to note is that every faction has its own strengths and weaknesses – and to loot a tidbit of eternal wisdom from Leto Atreides, being aware of possible traps is the best way to avoid them.

  • Low unit count and overall mobility. This is something that pretty much every Stormcast faction has to contend with. Most of the lists you’re gonna make are going to be 6 pieces or 7 maximum, and the best you’ll see with most of the roster is moving 4″ each action. Sure, there are some SCE pieces under the Grand Alliance that have 10 inch move who you can tag in as allies, but the cost for them is nearly prohibitive unless you want to field a couple of Gryph Hounds who, while speedy at 6″ move, are not the most imposing units out there.
  • Monster fodder. Going up against Monsters (or units with damage stats like them such as the old reliable Gutlord) is a challenge for any warband, and I feel it’s even more so for the SCE. Without any cheapo chaff that you can sacrifice to appease the hunger of the biggest, scariest models out there, you’re pretty much at risk of losing a valuable piece each time they come in for a bite. You’ve got the stats to hopefully survive an encounter, but a lucky dice roll from your opponent that deals over 20 damage can be crushing.
  • Crit farmers. Some warbands are filled with many attack / high secondary damage units who are designed to farm critical hits. My own Scions of the Flame warband that I recently used in a tournament went by that principle, with lots of 4 crit chaff swinging away at 3″ range. Crit farming won’t always work, no one’s luck is perfect, but when it does it’s devastating and completely ignores the benefits of having all that extra toughness.
  • Some hero pieces feel over-costed. Let’s take a look at two of them to illustrate this point – The Lord-Imperatant and the Annihilator-Prime with Grandhammer. Both units at first glance look amazing. Sweet damage profiles and tons of survivability. Our Lord-Imperatant also has access to Coordinated Strike – one of the best triples out there, that allows you to give bonus actions to allies. But once you get past the initial moment of glee you’ll notice that what you get stats-wise isn’t all the much of a departure from the baseline units – and at a significantly higher cost. Our Lord-Imperatant is sweet, but he’s almost double the cost of a Vindictor, which means bringing him inevitably means some hard cuts elsewhere. Similalry, our Annihilator-Prime is 55 points better than his regular version (or 70 better better than the 130 point variant – wow).
Lord-Imperatant. From Warcrier.net.
An Annihilator-Prime. From Warcrier.net.
  • Some abilities clash. Not all pieces work well together. Issues like this can be expected for any of the larger lists built out of the Age of Sigmar armies. One glaring example of this would be the Blaze of Glory double where your pieces can spend gain a bonus attack if they’ve taken 15 damage this game. However, plenty of units have healing abilities that only make it harder to activate (Knight Vexillor with Banner of Apotheosis or even the Praetors who heal damage from leader units using the Soul-forged Guardians ability at the cost of hurting themselves). Either you work to keep your team fit and healthy or you let them soak up the damage and go nuts – doing both is a lot of balancing.
Soul-forged Guardians of crap more like it. From Warcrier.net.
  • Some lists will be very dice hungry. SCE units can almost always make good use of a double (such as your Annihilators who love doubles to move further and smash harder). However, other units love doubles too and might force you to ration your abilities or let one piece be greedy and hope for the best. Take, for example, the Knight Arcanum. He’s a decent model stats-wise when it comes to pure combat, but his real value is in his double ability that lets him blast opponents from long-range. However, to get the most out of it, you’ll want to be feeding him a high double every turn – which might require you to use up your wild dice just for basic abilities each turn too.
Bolt from the Heavens. From Warcrier.net.
  • Weak reaction. When your SCE piece dies, if you have any activations left, they can blow up and deal D6 damage to an attacker in melee. Some people like it, but I kind of hate it – especially when you compare it to the far better death reaction the Questor Soulsworn offer (where they give a free move or attack to any friendly fighter on the board, anywhere). It’s nice to get one last little swing off, and not have to call your reaction until you know you’re dead, but considering how much damage an average piece can do when it’s alive, it’s almost not worth mentioning (and definitely not worth saving an activation for).
Thunderous Departure. From Warcrier.net.

Best Abilities for the SCE Thunderstrike Chamber in Warcry

After dissing some of their abilities in the section above, let’s look at ones that are pretty standout instead.

(Double) Blaze of Glory

Blaze of Glory. From Warcrier.net.

I love abilities that let the regular rank and file get bonus attacks for a double. There’s always a condition and in this case it requires your unit to have taken sizeable damage. Fortunately, since everyone has high HP, it means that you’ll have at least 5 HP leftover so it’s not as desperate as it might seem at first glance (especially if a leader uses it).

One of the quirks you might notice while playing is that because SCE pieces are rarely taken down from a single engagement they will end up with 5 health or just under A LOT of the time. In a recent game I played against them, my opponent managed to pull these off for 4 out of his 7 units – and sometimes more than once.

(Triple) Coordinated Strike

Coordinated Strike – a top triple. From Warcrier.net.

I know that I sort of crapped on the Lord-Imperatant above, but he’s one of two units who has access to this lovely ability (the other being, in my opinion, the superior Calthia Xandire).

Action economy is a major part of leading any warband to victory, and it’s especially important for lists with fewer pieces like the SCE Thunderstrike. Gaining additional move or attack actions can really make a different at any part of the game (from using a first turn Triple to get your units on objectives, to slaying your enemies when you’re in the thick of it during rounds 3 or 4).

With this ability, not only do you get 1 bonus action, but you get up to 2 if you have enough units in range (and which can include the unit using the ability). Honestly, it’s not crazy to build your entire list around maximizing the use of this ability.

Even better is that it works regardless of the value of the ability – so don’t worry about busting out your Triple 1s to activate this bad boy.

(Various) Universal Abilities

It’s worth mentioning also that the SCE Thunderstrike is one of those lists that will definitely benefit from using several of the universal abilities common to all warbands.

  • Rush (Double): Adding only 1″ of movement isn’t always that impressive, but when you have a number of units with only 3″ move (such as Annihilators), it makes more of a difference – and especially if they don’t deploy near any objectives. Getting to the engagement is key and this is one of the only ways you’ll be able to give your guys a boost.
  • Onslaught (Double): Adding +1 to the attack characteristic of each attack activation that round is always a good way to use up leftover doubles at the end of a turn. However, some of the SCE Thunderstrike units (such as Annihilators, again) have a great damage profile and having one more attack can easily mean as much as 3-5 more damage against a lot of targets.
  • Rampage (Quad): While the value of the Quad affects how far you get on your bonus move, the bonus attack of this ability also makes it always useful for when your guys are in the thick of it. Like elsewhere, being able to move an Annihilator 6″ is a godsend – but then being able to attack 3 times is like dropping a bomb on the battlefield.

Best SCE Thunderstrike Units for Warcry

There’s a lot of decent units in the faction, and a couple are truly the cream of the crop. I’d honestly rank some of these as among the best units in not just any SCE chamber, but in the whole Grand Alliance of Order.

Vindictors

Vindictors. How I love you. From Warcrier.net.

Vindictors are one of those near perfect pieces that, when you field them, are also somehow always better than you expect them to be.

They have a solid attack profile of 2″ range, 3 attacks, 4 strength and 2/5 damage.

The 5 damage for rolling the crit is a nice addition to compensate for their pretty average strength profile as rolling two of those babies guarantees a kill on almost every chaff piece out there (10 damage).

I also swear sometimes that there is a secret “luck” stat that some models have and Vindictors are certainly one of them.

The number of times I’ve gone up against them and had them deal 7-9 damage on a single attack activation against a toughness 4 or 5 opponent is crazy.

Plus, having 6 toughness also makes these guys are extremely resilient.

A lot of heavy hitter pieces out there can deal some massive damage but often only have 5 strength (such as Bullgors or even the Ogroid Myrmidon). So there’s really only a couple pieces in the game that can even hope to roll 4-6 for damage, much less a 3+.

And lastly, one of the best things about them is their cost.

At only 135 points, they’re well below the average point cost for Stormcast units, letting you have plenty of options for listbuilding – including some options for getting 7 or more units on the table.

Vindictor Prime

Vindicto Prime. From Warcrier.net.

The Prime version of the Vindictor is more of the same good s tuff.

He’s 35 points more expensive than the base units, which is a bit of a leap, but you get better stats and access to the leader abilities. Also, at 170 points he’s tied for cheapest leader from the faction, with better combat stats that the Knight Vexillor with Banner of Apotheosis.

As far as leader options go for the Thunderstrike Chamber, he’s the best all around choices for his relatively low cost and high value. There’s nothing flashy about him, but sometimes the best leaders are the simplest ones out there.

Annihilators

Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer. From Warcrier.net.
And the more pricey version with Grandhammer. From Warcrier.net.

Annihilators are one of the scariest pieces your opponents can face from this SCE chamber.

They have high toughness, remarkable damage output, and due to their surprisingly low starting cost of 130 points, you can field plenty of them.

As fighters, they come in two versions (with Grandhammer or Meteoric Hammer). Both versions of the Annihilator are great pieces, but for slightly different reasons.

  • For the version with the Grandhammer, the 2″ range makes these guys utterly terrifying to face. Sure, they have only 3″ move but that extra reach gives them more threat range and lets them utterly smash spear and shield units that might be hoping to poke at them from a distance. With 6 strength they can even roll hits on 3-4-5-6 on most armoured units out there, and 4-5-6 on the tankiest pieces under the sun.
  • The other version with the Meteoric Hammer has less range, but is even tankier at the near godlike 7 toughness and 15 points cheaper!

Their only downside of these models is their speed – which at 3″ inches makes them something of a tortoise. As such, using them means your main problem to solve is how to ensure that you can get them into the fight.

Clever opponents will do what they can to kite around them and avoid your Annihilators entirely (as only a lunatic would run in to fight them face to face).

Calthia Xandire (Bladeborn)

Calthia Xandire from Warhammer Underworlds. From Warcrier.net.

Stats-wise, she’s pretty good – and a great chaff killer with 5 attacks that can go up to 6 with an Onslaught.

30 points might not feel like a lot, but in a chunky warband, every little bit of wiggle room counts for something.

Her true glory shines in the fact that she also has access to the Coordinated Strike ability – and at 30 points less for the model than the Lord-Imperatant.

Getting your hands on this model is fortunately easy. For a Bladeborn ally, Xandire is thankfully one of the easiest pieces to find out there. Not only did she come in multiple Underworlds formats, but she was also in a recent starter set for Warcry.

She’s really a must-have for any SCE Thunderstrike collector.

SCE Thunderstrike Models to Avoid

While not every model for the faction is a standout piece (some are decidedly very average, such as the Vanquishers who are neither great nor terrible), a couple are in my opinion quite awful and should be avoided.

Knight-Judicator

Knight-Judicator. A glorious trap. From Warcrier.net.

Nothing pains me more than to call a piece that’s this beautiful a loser. Unfortunately, he kinda is without a lot of help from his friends (which I wrote about previously in a standalone piece on the Knight-Judicator).

While he’s got great stats to tank, his melee profile is just meh – totally middle of the road, and not enough of a reason to ever use it.

The real issue is his ranged profile. In particular, seeing that 10 crit damage there on a ranged attack is enough to make most mouths water, at least until you realize it’s a trap.

With a single attack, even with 5 strength, you’re not gonna be dealing 10 damage most of the time (and at least 33% of the time dealing 0 damage on an attack activation from a 235 point unit — yikes!)

There are ways to buff him to get more attack dice and activations (such as with Coordinated Strike or with some fun allied piece combos), but there’s just so many better uses of your activations, abilities, and points unless you go all in with him.

Praetors

Another beautiful loser, the Praetor. From Warcrier.net.

Continuing the trend of “best looking worst pieces” we have the Praetor.

His stats are not total crap at a glance. In fact, that’s a pretty good damage profile.

However, when you compare him to Vindictors and Annihilators, he just falls flat. For 25 extra points, he’s a Vindictor with +1 strength and +2 HP, of for 30 he’s a faster and worse Annihilator.

His ability is also pretty confusing. As mentioned earlier, it lets you heal a leader piece while also taking damage. The problem is that your pieces don’t care about taking damage, and it even benefits them if they hit that magic 15 marker.

Again, this pains me. They look so cool, but are so lame.

Best Allies from other SCE Chambers and Factions

As I mentioned earlier, Order is a massive grand alliance with a ton of pieces.

Getting into the best allies from all the models available is gonna make for a post of its own at some point (I’ll update when I finally have that one written).

To settle for the next best thing, I’ve included in our discussion some of the best allied pieces to bring in from the other Stormcast Eternals factions out there.

Questor with Grandspear

Errant-Questor with Grandspear. From Warcrier.net.

One of my favourite pieces from the remarkably fun Questor Soulsworn warband.

At 3″ range, he’s basically just the bigger brother of our Vindictors.

His HP is unfortunately only 20, so he’s less survivable than the Vindictor Prime, but his strength is 5 and he has access to the fairly solid Questor list of abilities (including their fantastic double that gives friendly units a free move and their death reaction).

All in all, he makes a great addition as both an attacker and supporting figure to any list that has Annihilators in it.

Castigator Prime

Castigator-Prime. From Warcrier.net.

I feel that listing this fellow is going to be a bit controversial, especially since I made fun of the Lord-Imperatant for being the same points cost, but hear me out.

As an ally, he pretty much brings a lot of stuff to the table that the SCE Thunderstrike are missing. Namely, a great ranged attack that can soften up opposition and kill chaff while the rest of the warband moves into position.

When used well, the Castigator Prime, as I mentioned in a previous article looking into the SCE Sacrosanct Chamber, is a complete monster of a unit.

Using Cleanse the Realm of Taint for a double to gain a bonus, he can easily obliterate 1-2 pieces of chaff a turn.

Alternatively, a high triple for his Burst of Celestial Lightning can give him a damage profile of 5/7 and be used to nuke a tougher piece (such as a 20 HP / 4 toughness leader unit that you commonly see from the bespoke warbands).

Knight-Heraldor

Knight-Heraldor. From Warcrier.net

A lot of the models from the Warrior chamber are similar to ones in Thunderstrike, meaning they’ve got some decent if unnecessary pieces to tag in as allies – save for this guy who stands out for being a bit of a weirdo.

Stats-wise, the Knight-Heraldor is also par for the course for SCE units. He’s got the same weapon profile as a Vanquisher, and the boosted HP common to leaders.

Where he earns his points is with his ability (listed below). It’s sadly a Quad to activate but for a high value Quad it can be pretty darn impressive in the right circumstances.

Tempest Winds. From Warcrier.net.

The beauty of this ability is that it affects ALL friendly units within 12″ of this piece – that’s a lot of board covered – and lasts until the end of the battle round.

That means with a Quad 6, every single piece of yours can get +6″ added to their movement. Impressively, if you have a bunch of Annihilators lurking around, this means those bad boys can all become missiles until the end of the battle round, either striking at opponents who thought they were safe or even sneaking in to clutch objectives.

Contextually, giving your entire team up to an additional 12″ of movement for a round is crazy. When deployed properly, it can easily win you the game on those situations where your units seemed out of position or just too far from the fun.

Competitive list ideas for SCE Thunderstrike in Warcry

Alrighty, finally we’re getting to meat of the matter and going over a couple of ideas for lists.

The Calthia Xandire Blitzkrieg

This one, as the name suggests, makes Calthia Xandire and her Coordinated Strike triple the centerpiece to the overall strategy.

———-
Stormcast Eternals Thunderstrike Stormcast
1,000pts | 7 fighters | Valid ✓

– Calthia Xandire (210pts, Hero)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
– Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
– Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
– Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
———-
Generated on Warcrier.net

General Strategy

You’ll probably want to pair her with two Annihilators to make the most out of her ability to give bonus moves in the early turns or for leaving the deployment zones.

You can then pair up your remaining Vindictors and Annihilators in the other two deployments.

Once you get into the thick of things, you’ll want Xandire to start using her triple to give you Annihilators bonus attacks as you chop through the opposition.

Strengths of the List

You’ve got 7 units. It’s always a plus having that one extra body on the table.

Every ability roll is useful – whether you have doubles, triples or quads, they’ll each be handy in almost every situation.

Tanky and heavy-hitting. Against most units, you’ll be harder to kill, and deal a good amount of damage back to whoever’s crazy enough to get into engagement range.

Knight-Heraldor Hell Punch

I’m not sure what a “hell punch” is but it’s the first thing that came to my mind when describing this list.

----------
Warband Roster
1,000pts | 7 fighters

- Knight-Heraldor (185pts, Hero)
- Vindictor-Prime (170pts, Hero)
- Vindictor (135pts)
- Vindictor (135pts)
- Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
- Annihilator with Meteoric Hammer (130pts)
- Gryph-Hound (115pts)
----------
Generated on Warcrier.net
General Strategy

Similar to the one above, it’s about using your ally’s ability to make the rest of the team move.

In this case, you’ll want the Knight-Heraldor to hang out with his two Annihilator buddies (though not necessary, due to the range of the ability). Hope for a high triple to boost with a wild dice or a natural quad and you’re off to the races, sending your guys at your opponent like a bunch of heavily armoured death missiles…. or Hell Punches?

The one drawback is that we were 5 points off from having 2 hero units and 5 Annihilators (hence, the Gryph-Hound). That in mind, feel free to swap out the two Vindictors for more Annihilators because it will be truly glorious the day you get a quad six and manage to boost four of them.

Strengths of the List

You’ve got 7 units. One is a Gryph-Hound, but what can ya do?

You’ve got meat and muscle and with a Quad you’ve now got fast moving meat and muscle.

“The Tin Cans” – Pure Thunderstrike List

This was one of the lists that competed at the recent Golden Troll Warcry Tournament in Montreal.

----------
Warband Roster
1,000pts | 7 fighters

- Vindictor-Prime (170pts, Hero)
- Annihilator with Grandhammer (145pts)
- Annihilator with Grandhammer (145pts)
- Vindictor (135pts)
- Vindictor (135pts)
- Vindictor (135pts)
- Vindictor (135pts)
----------
Generated on Warcrier.net

At the tournament, the list acquired one of the highest blood tallies for units taken down over the course of the event even if it didn’t win any matches unfortunately.

Not that it should be a reason to be discouraged, actually, as I believe the list’s performance had a lot less to do with the list itself and more to do with the opponents (all 3 of its games, opponents ended up being the top 3 placed Warbands at the tourney).

I honestly believe that if they went up against any other opponents, they would have taken back mostly or entirely wins that day.

Also of note, I had played against this list with my own Scions of the Flame warband (which won the tournament) a few weeks earlier in a friendly match-up.

In that game, I was decimated by these guys as we fought over a couple of objectives clustered around the middle of the map. My Fomo had a hard time killing his Vindictors and my Blazing Lord got honest-to-God one shotted by an Annilator using Onslaught.

Scary stuff.

General Strategy

Move forward and smash stuff. Really.

Not tricks, just great stats.

Strengths of the List

You get 7 SCE units on the table. This always makes a huge difference compared to SCE lists with only 6. That one additional activation can help close the gap on larger lists, ease some pressure on having to deal with an opponent waiting you out, and also gets you 1 really scary deployment of 3 SCE models.

Every unit has 2″ range in the warband. We sometimes don’t think about it, but having that 1″ extra range really helps give some of the slower pieces like the Annihilators a larger threat range. It also means your pieces can duke it out evenly with opponents who might be fielding units with spears and shields (such as Gutrippas).

Lots of survivability. SCE is known for their resilience, and this list doesn’t undersell it. Every unit has 20 HP and at least 6 toughness, meaning virtually all opponents will be rolling 5-6 to damage your pieces.

Heavy damage dealing capabilities. Annihilators who get to double attack on their activation are monsters. They can take down a 20 HP leader piece from the bespoke Warbands like they’re made of wet paper, and also deal severe damage to some of the heaviest pieces with the most HP out there (Ironjawz Megaboss, Ogor Maw Tyrant, etc.).

A Little Help From My SCE Friends

This list brings in allies from the Questor Soulsworn and the Sacrosanct Chamber for a list that makes the best out of various strengths of these different factions / models.

----------
Warband Roster
995pts | 6 fighters

- Castigator-Prime (240pts, Hero)
- Errant-Questor with Grandspear (170pts, Hero)
- Vindictor-Prime (170pts, Hero)
- Annihilator with Grandhammer (145pts)
- Vindictor (135pts)
- Vindictor (135pts)
----------
Generated on Warcrier.net
General Strategy

You’ve got the Castigator Prime who can kill chaff and harass larger pieces, punishing opponents who might be looking to kite away from your other models or play the waiting game.

For getting into the battle, ability dice are your best friends here.

Doubles, pretty much across the board, can be used for more movement (such as the Questor boosting allies), more damage (Onslaughts), or bonus attacks (if the Castigator Prime finishes an opponent).

The Castigtor Prime will want to use all your triples for bonus damage. However, high triples can also be turned into quads for Rampage if you need to get an Annihilator into the fight from 5″ or 6″ away.

Strengths of the List

Obliterates chaff heavy warbands. Every piece here from the Castigator Prime to the regular old Vindictor can easily steamroll enemy chaff or mid-tier units with low toughness or HP. Lists that use chaff to pump up their numbers can see that advantage drop quickly the moment you start picking them off.

Great range. In the whole list there’s only 1x 1″ range weapon and its the melee of the attack of the Castigator Prime which, if we’re being, honest, hopefully won’t get used. After that you’re looking at minimum 2″, with 3″ for the Errant-Questor and a 6-15″ for the Castigator’s main attack.

Very tanky. Out of all the pieces, the Errant-Questor with 5 toughness and 20 HP is your weakest model where survivability is concerned (but that shouldn’t concern him too much as he can hopefully avoid most melees with his 3″ range). If you place a Vindictor and Annihilator in each deployment, you’ll have a tank in every squad.

All ability rolls are useful. Sometimes you get a good list but don’t have a single unit who can use a certain ability roll (looking at you, triples). Here, You’ve got pieces who can put doubles, triples, and quads to good use.

“Oops! All Vindictors”

These is one of those meme lists that sometimes pops up on Reddit and elsewhere, but which at the same time is a remarkably workable list.

———-
Warband Roster
980pts | 7 fighters

– Vindictor-Prime (170pts, Hero)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Vindictor (135pts)
– Vindictor (135pts)
———-
Generated on Warcrier.net

I suppose I had to include it because I heard rumours that someone won a tournament recently field this exact same list!

Note: A Redditor going by europeantroll made a great point in a discussion earlier, when he suggested that Knight-Relictor or the Vanquisher Prime would both make stronger leaders for a 7 unit list like this (swapping out the Vindictor-Prime). The Knight Relictor’s ability allows him for a Triple to reduce incoming damage to all allies within 6″ by 1 per hit or critical hit, making your very survivable Vindictors even more survivable.

As a funny side note, I have run Vanquishers multiple times and even though those guys should be dealing solid damage with 4 attacks at 2/4 damage, they tend to whiff or only deal 2-4 damage more often than not when I roll. I can’t say what it is, other than that secret luck stat at work against them.

In any event, this is probably the most straightforward list you’ll even play, and you might only ever want to play it once, but you’ll more than likely be able to hold your own with them against pretty much any opponent – even some heavy hitters like the Gutlord from the Ogor Mawtribes.

General Strategy

Don’t die and be sure to kill things.

Like a lot of SCE Thunderstrike lists, you have no tricks, just a lot of meat and metal.

Strengths of the List

All your pieces are Vindictors. It’s no joke. These guys are great, and all your guys are them.

2″ range across the board. You can outstab most of your opponents from a distance.

High crits. Those 5 damage crits are gonna make your opponent swear if you can keep landing them consistently, from all your pieces.

6 toughness across the board. As mentioned before, with toughness like that, even a Fomoroid Crusher is only rolling 4-5-6 to damage you, and pretty much everything else only 5-6.

Conclusions and Takeaways

And that pretty much wraps up the meta game discussion of our post. Below, you’ll find more info about where to buy these models and which boxes might be the best value for you.

SCE Thunderstrike are a very accessible faction, with easy to find pieces, and some fairly simple lists that can be built. They might not be the most complex or thought-provoking warband, they’re pretty solid on the board and a skilled player who can make the right calls on the battlefield can definitely make good use of them.

Looking to get into SCE Thunderstrike for Warcry?

We also put together a post discussing how you can get a good warband for the Thunderstrike Chamber on the cheap, including which boxes to go for and some other considerations when building and buying your way to the warband of your dreams.

Author

  • author image of Alexander

    Co-founder of Quest & Cartridge. Recovering Nordic Crime addict. He got back into miniatures and tabletop gaming during the pandemic after a long detox period. Has the strange ability to roll more 6s than 1s in any tabletop game or RPG. He’s also seen too many Rutger Hauer movies and still remembers what it’s like to play an Atari 2600 first hand back in the 80s.

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