Warhammer Age of Sigmar Warcry Spire Tyrants Guide

Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Warcry is a skirmish game that recontextualizes some of the factions that you know and love from the base game. This guide will show you all the info you need to understand how the Spire Tyrants work and how you can use them the best. 

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The Spire Tyrants are warriors and pit fighters from the fighting pits of the Varenspire. Only the most brutal, skilled, and determined to survive the pits and make it out. After surviving the pits, they seek bigger challenges and glory and the best place for that is at the Everchosen's side.

The Spire Tyrants are very similar to the Iron Golems, but less armored and rolling more dice in attack. They're good at fighting, but lack the speed to get them in, so making the enemy come to you, and great positioning is key.

Spire Tyrants Fighter Types

The Spire Tyrants have access to the following fighters:

• Pit Champion - The Pit Champion is a versatile leader. 4 move, 4 toughness, and 20 wounds are average for the Chaos warband leaders. The Pit Champion has access to 2 attacks though, a range 1, 4 dice, 5 strength attack and a range 3, 3 dice strength 4 attack, which gives them some great options for keeping enemies at a distance, but also dealing with them in they get close. It ties well into the Champion of the Warpits rune they have access to where for a triple, after taking out an enemy fighter, they can add 1 to the attacks of all visible friendly fighters within 6 inches. This can make a deployment group particularly deadly at taking out enemy groups.
• Headclaimer - The Headclaimer is a veteran fighter with 4 move, 4 toughness, and 15 wounds. They have a range 1 attack, rolling 3 dice, strength 5. They have access to the Brutal Strike rune, where for a quad, a dice is rolled against an enemy fighter within 1 inch, dealing the value of the quad used in damage on a 3 or 4, and double the value on a 5 or 6. It's a strong ability, but risky for a quad, but can be a great play late game if it pays off.
• Beastigor Destroyer - The Destroyer is very similar to the Headclaimer in stats. Move 4, toughness 4, and 18 wounds. They roll 1 less dice in attack but deal more wounds on the hits. They also have access to the Brutal Strike rune. At 10 more points, you are better off with another Headclaimer. The extra 3 wounds aren't worth it, and dice is always preferable over damage.
• Frenzied Rager - The Rager is a brutal fighter with a range 1, 4 dice, strength 4 attack. They only have a move of 3, so getting them into combat is an effort. They have access to the Readied Stance rune, which for a triple can boost their toughness, but if you've already been able to get them into combat, there are better runes to use to capitalize on that.
• Pit Veteran with Shield - The Pit Veteran with Shield has 4 move, 5 toughness, and 10 wounds, with access to the Readied Stance rune to boost toughness and also the Shield Ram rune that can damage an enemy fighter within 1 inch on a roll of a 4+. They have a range 1, 2 dice, strength 3 attack dealing 2/4 wounds. At 110 points they are expensive for little gain. 
• Pit Veteran with Dual Weapons - The Pit Veteran with Dual Weapons option is more appealing than the Shield variant. They have 1 less toughness and don't have the Shield Bash rune, but they roll 1 more dice in attack, making them much more effective than the shield variant.
• Pit Fighter with Punch Dagger - There are 3 Pit Fighter weapon options. They all have 4 move, 3 toughness, and 10 wounds. The Punch Dagger option rolls 4 dice in attack, strength 3, 1/3 damage, and at nearly half the points of the Pit Veteran with Shield, I'd rather have 2 of them. 
• Pit Fighter with Spear - The Pit Fighter with Spear trades a dice in attack for range 2, with an extra crit damage. Having a balance of both Punch Daggers and Spears would be an effective formation of warriors.
• Pit Fighter with Net - The Pit Fighter with Net variant is 5 fewer points than the other 2 and trades a dice in attack against the Punch Dagger option for the Gladiator's Net rune, which for a double, lets them stop an enemy fighter within 3 inches moving on a 3+.

How to build out of the box

The Spire Tyrants are available in their own boxed set, which is available to purchase from Firestorm Games here.

The Spire Tyrants have 6 fighters types, with armament options for 2 of them. Some choices will have to be made when building.

The sprues let you build.

Set miniatures

• 1x Pit Champion
• 1x Headclaimer
• 1x Beastigor Destroyer
• 1x Frenzied Rager
• 2x Pit Veteran with Shield
• 1x Pit Fighter with Net

Optional Armaments

• 1x Pit Veteran with Shield or 1x Pit Veteran with Dual Weapons
• 1x Pit Fighter with Punch Dagger or 1x Pit Fighter with Spear

If building out of the box, the points values for the set miniatures are 830. Both of the Pit Fighter options are 60 points, and there is a 5 points difference between the Pit Veteran Options, which means your total points will either be 995 or 1000 if building with just 1 set.

If only building using 1 box, taking the Pit Veteran with Dual Weapons and Pit Fighter with Spear gives you the most versatility out of those fighters. Getting hold of more Pit Fighters can really up the competitiveness of the Spire Tyrants.

Spire Tyrants General Tactics

The Spire Tyrants are a difficult warband to master, especially against the Age of Sigmar warbands. They're good in combat, but they have very limited resources for getting them there. Their lack of movement leaves them unable to react to fast-moving enemies. So it's essential that you deploy correctly and commit to your plan.

All Spire Tyrants have access to the Pit Fighter rune, where for a double, they can make a bonus move or attack after taking out an enemy fighter. This can be deadly in an optimized list. Out of the warband box, there are some fighters that we would drop straight away from a competitive list and others we want more of. Doubling up on Pit Fighters over Pit Veterans will give you access to more fighters who roll more dice in attack in order to maximize your chances of catching the enemy and being able to bounce off them with multiple uses of the Pit Fighter rune.

Spire Tyrants Deployment Tactics

For this section, we're only looking at the balanced options for each of the decks. Using all the cards is harder to predict and plan for, but great for open friendly games.

Using only the balanced deployment cards, Shield is deployed 15 times out of 18 on the table. Having your Pit Champion, with a core of competent fighters can be a solid unit when combined with the Champions of the Warpits and subsequent Pit Fighter runes. If you have the Rager, it's always better to have them in Shield so they can deploy with the core of your force. Having them come on late game on the opposite side of the board can render them useless for the game.

Hammer appears in Round 2 onwards 10 out of 18 times and Dagger 8 out of 18 times. These are slightly more difficult for the Spire Tyrants, as having warriors deployed far away from the action can really hamper their game, so having range options and support fighters for them in Hammer and Dagger is probably the best option.

Spire Tyrants Mission Tactics

Out of the 18 balanced missions, 6 are combat based, requiring removing either the leader or different deployment groups. 9 are objective-based and 3 are mixed, movement/survival-based.  

With dedicated strategies, the Spire Tyrants can get missions done. Removing a section of the enemy or holding an objective can be straight-forward with the right deployment. If the enemy has fast-moving targets, that need to be removed, try to herd them into a corner. But once you focus on a task, see it through to completion, they don't have the maneuverability to be able to change plans half-way through the game.

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