How to Play Fyreslayers in Warhammer Age of Sigmar (4th Edition)

The army rule is the Ur-gold Runes. There are five of them, each is once per battle, and using any one of them locks out the others for the rest of that battle round. That last clause is the one people misread. You do not get a rune every round on top of the others: you get five uses across the entire game, at most one per battle round.

• Rune of Fury (start of any turn) - your units strike first against anything that charged them in the same turn. This is the defensive answer to an alpha strike.
• Rune of Fiery Determination (any hero phase) - a 5+ ward for the whole army for the round.
• Rune of Farsight (any shooting phase) - mortal damage to every enemy within 10 inches of any of your units, plus a critical-hit upgrade on your ranged weapons for the round.
• Rune of Relentless Zeal (your movement phase) - run and still charge, for the round. This is how a slow army closes.
• Rune of Searing Heat (any combat phase) - melee critical hits become mortal damage for the round.

Planned properly, that is a five-round script: Zeal to close, Fury or Determination to survive the counter-punch, Searing Heat for the decisive combat. Played reactively, it is five wasted rounds.

You pick exactly one battle formation for your army and it grants a single ability. There is no budget to spend and no way to combine two. Fyreslayers have four, all in the free faction pack and all confirmed in the free Battle Profiles:

• Warrior Kinband - Fyreslayers Infantry that charged this turn add 1 to their wound rolls in combat. The aggressive default.
• Forge Brethren - Fyreslayers Infantry add 1 to save rolls while wholly within friendly territory. A home-half defensive bonus, not a general one.
• Scales of Vulcatrix - every friendly Magmadroth gets a flat 2 extra Health. No trigger, no range, no once-per-turn.
• Lords of the Lodge - Fyreslayers Heroes add 3 to their control scores, and enemy abilities cannot reduce those scores. An objective formation.

The Scourge of Aqshy pack does not add a fifth, so this really is the whole list.

Alongside the General's Handbook 2026-27, Games Workshop published Scourge of Aqshy: a free per-faction rules layer. Every faction got one, and the contents vary. The Fyreslayers pack, dated 30 June 2026, contains: - Marks of Vulcatrix, a special enhancement table that can only go on Magmadroths: Thickened Scales, Aureate Hide and Intense Fyrestream; - Vulkyn Gifts, a second prayer lore; - variant warscrolls for the Auric Runeson on Magmadroth and Vulkyn Flameseekers.

It contains no battle formations. Two rules about how the layer plugs in matter more than the individual cards: a Scourge of Aqshy table replaces the equivalent faction pack table rather than adding to it, so taking Vulkyn Gifts means giving up Zharrgrim Blessings, and several of these cards key off the season's fury and rage rules, so they only do anything in a General's Handbook 2026-27 game.

• Vulkite Berzerkers - the battle-line block, in a slingshield or fyresteel build. The unit most formations are actually buffing.
• Hearthguard Berzerkers - elite melee infantry with two weapon options.
• Auric Hearthguard - the ranged infantry option. Rune of Farsight buffs ranged weapons including Companion weapons, so it pays out for Magmadroth breath as well as for these.
• Vulkyn Flameseekers - a mixed elite unit that cannot be reinforced, and one of the two entries with a Scourge of Aqshy variant warscroll.
• Magmadroths (Auric Runefather, Runeson, Runesmiter on Magmadroth) - the monsters. Scales of Vulcatrix exists for them, and Droth-helm buffs their Companion weapons.
• Auric Runemaster and Auric Runesmiter - the Priests. Both prayer lores run through them.
• Grimwrath Berzerker, Doomseeker, Auric Flamekeeper, Grimhold Exile, Battlesmith - the cheap Hero and single-model layer, and the reason Lords of the Lodge scores.
• Magmic Battleforge - the faction terrain feature.

Which units are strongest shifts with each Battle Profiles republish, so treat this as a map of roles rather than a tier list.

Fyreslayers are slow, tough and enormously punchy in a straight fight. The army has almost no natural mobility, so it wins by choosing one fight, arriving in it intact, and deleting what it finds. The Ur-gold Runes are the tool that makes that possible, and the whole game is a plan for how to spend them.

A workable script: hold the midboard cheaply, use Rune of Relentless Zeal on the round you need to close, protect the approach with Rune of Fiery Determination or Rune of Fury, and cash out with Rune of Searing Heat on the combat that decides the game. If you are running Magmadroths, the beasts do the reaching and the infantry hold what they take.

• Treating the runes as a per-round toolkit. They are once per battle each and lock each other out inside a round. Using one early to squeeze a marginal advantage costs you a round of every other rune.
• Assuming Forge Brethren is a general save bonus. It only applies wholly within friendly territory, so a Forge Brethren army that pushes forward turns its own formation off.
• Taking Warrior Kinband for a Magmadroth list. The bonus is Fyreslayers Infantry only.
• Forgetting the Scourge of Aqshy tables replace rather than add. Taking Vulkyn Gifts means losing Zharrgrim Blessings, not having both.

Fyreslayers struggle against armies that can refuse the fight: fast, shooty or teleporting opponents can simply avoid the block of duardin walking up the middle. Mobility tools and enough board presence to make avoidance costly are what the list is short of.