ShiverShield – 2026 Warband – Part 3 – The Woods in the Woods
Well.. I’m not expect any further posts on this until after the day, what with 2 weeks to go, but there are still some things I can talk about and some figure work to show.
Advancement
While there is nothing stopping you just playing a game as a one-off, you can also play as a campaign. These don’t really need to be that tightly put together but feature you using the same Warband and it growing over the course of time. Shivershield features a new update on the advanced routes you can take with the ‘Ways’.
Each group has it’s own special way but there are also a list of various other ‘ways’ they can take. These are advancement paths with there own rewards and objectives to do. For the Merfolk, you have the Way of the Devourer. Its secondary objective (all ways objectives are secondary) is to end the clash with more sacrificial victims than you started with. This could be easy, or very hard depending on how you play the band. As you start with only 1 victim per priest (or Deep Priest), this isn’t too bad but you could take their primary objective as Abduction, which will give you 3 extra victims. Okay, so how many you start with isn’t that important when you just need to end with more then you start with, BUT it means you have more victims which can only be moved by being carried. And this will slow down your own troops. So the more you have, the more you need to bother to take care of them and this could be a problem.
The Way of the Devourer has 37 ‘nodes’ on the path. Three of these allow the recruitment of more troops. For the Merfolk, none of these allow Ally recruitment (they don’t have many allies, which makes sense when you think they are probably gonna sacrifice you after the battle) but they do allow you to take an option from the recruitment chart. There is also a state upgrade, two special rewards but the most likely for a new band to get is a skill upgrade at position four on the path.
Each time you take part in a clash, you will get one point of advancement on the path. if you achieve an object, you get one point. If you take part in a clash with another warband who is atleast 2 nodes higher on their path, you get a point and if you take part with one that is atleast 7 ahead, you get a point. As warbands would have a primary and secondary objective, the total points you can get in one clash is 5. But that would be pretty uncommon, more so for any new campaign. So the minimum you will get is 1, but I think you should aim for atleast 2, which means you need to get some objectives done. If I was aiming for two in a clash, that would mean it would be two clashes before I get any reward from my path and that would be the skill points.
It would grant me 4 skill points to spend and these MUST be spent between ending the last clash and starting the next one. No more than two skill points can be spend on a single model. So what can I do with these skill points and what would be best?
Each point can be spent on buying one new skill from the common skill list. The skills are awarded per model, so if I wanted to give a company of, say, 4, a new skill, that would cost 4 points. You can’t mix and match within a company either. So it would be all or nothing. This isn’t too much of a bother cause the only companies I have are the Shellycoats and as they are kinda disposable troops, spending precious points on them might be a waste, even if they could boost them up.
So most likely, I’m going to use the points to boost up my priests. The first skill which looks appealing is ‘Healer‘. A healer may use 3 stamina to heal a single friendly model in base contact up to 2 lost endurance, OR removing all bleeding conditions. That would be helpful for dealing with, well, wounds. It also helps between games heal injuries from the clash. There is also the ‘Camouflage‘ skill which would mean the model could hide when next to a terrain element, and only be seen when enemies are close. This could help with any sneak attacks needed. The only other skill which jumps out for me is ‘Infiltrate‘. Not so much for my Priests, but my Net fish. This allows the models to be set up anyway on the board as long as it’s 8″ away from all opposing models. This means they could be much closer to the Enemy and ready to net them.
But what other paths can the Merfolk take? well..
The Path of Devotion, Opportunity, Espionage, Acquisition or Rebirth. I’ll only go over these quickly..
Devotion has 27 nodes and give the secondary objective of stopping the enemy from going anywhere near (well, 4″) a picked terrain feature which is more near the middle of the board for the whole clash. Tricky but it does give good early rewards.
Opportunity has 32 nodes, so is a long one, but it has one of the easiest to achieve secondary objectives. Each time, you need to put atleast one your of models on alert.
Espionage has 28 nodes and gives a secondary object of having to watch your enemies. You need to become aware of each enemy model and then keep them in your sights for the rest of the clash. very tricky unless you are REALLY going for a spy based warband.
Acquisition has 21 nodes and gives the secondary objective of taking out a picked model on the enemies side. This model is the one with the most equipment.
And finally, Rebirth has 34 nodes (even longer then Opportunity), and it’s secondary objective is that you need to have a different model activate first each turn, or atleast all your models have had a turn (this is in case you have less than 12 models). While this might seam pretty easy It would mean that some turns, you are having your least decisive models go first. Is this a bad thing? maybe. Depends on the model, but it does limit your options when picking the order.
Figures again
Well, I have all my band painted up and ready for play…
BUT there is a minor issue. One of the bits of fate weaving I can do is summon a new Shellycoat. That means I need atleast one extra Shellycoat figure. ALSO, What about captives? one of my optional objectives have the band start with 3 extra captives… Also, while probably not likely, depending on my path, it’s possible I’ll have some new recruits..
These are MOST of my Shellycoats. I got one which I haven’t quite finished right now (and I might see about a couple more). The new guy here is that first one, which is a Zombie from I think a Ral Partha Set. quick job and worked fair enough. the guy next to him.. I might not have shown him yet.. misc bits of some spare parts from I think mostly if not fully citadel sets. I’m using a patina for a watery kinda thing… mostly cause I have a connection between that kinda shade of blue and watery ruins… I might explain that some time, but I think I went over board with this figure and he just looks like a rusty robot more.. not quite right.. but oh well.
Here are my current captives. I do have an idea for one more but not sure if that’ll happen. This is kinda more then enough captives. The new ones as the last two. ‘Fred’ and Mel. They are old Doctor Who Blacktree miniatures. ‘Fred’ (Romanadvoratrelunda) as played by Mary Tamm, and wearing her dress from the Armageddon Factor (the main dress ended up a bit darker due to too many whites). Next to her, is Mel as played by Bonnie Langford but I’m not sure what outfit she is wearing. Her more ‘sterotypical’ one is a pinky-peach with white strips, puff sleeves, white trousers and white shoes, but that has long sleeves where this one has short. But while I think she only wore it once (Time and the Rani), I felt it was the closest to the figure. The pose appears based on the cover of Head Games but at the same time, not that pose… So might just be more generic. Still, I think they both work well enough as captives.
And for a Merfolk band, this is kinda the only Bucca in it. I’ve shown these before but this is the set together right now. The Priest, the Deep Priest, and two Bucca Net fish customs. Ideally, I’ll have a couple of extra Net fish, or some spear fish.
Minor Comments
I have figured out that it is possible to have made up a worse merfolk warband. Instead of a company of shellycoats, I could have picked 3 more captives. But would this have been worse? As stated before, for the Bucca to use fateweavering abilities, they need to sacrifice a captive. Each priest only starts with 1 captive, so my band has 2 (one for the Deep Priest, one for the Priest). Having three extra captives would give 3 more fateweaving spells I am able to do. So this might have been favourable compared to the Shellycoats, however, with only 2 net fish, both of whom only have a one-shot weapon (well, everyone has atleast their bare hands (or flippers) but do you want to take fists to a Sword fight?) I really don’t feel that confidant about my defences. Having that company of disposable troops gives a small safe guard. They might not be fantastic attackers but they aren’t the worse when it comes to defense.
So, time to see just how badly the band performs, eh?
