Warpstone Flux Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
3.5/5 stars. Rounded down. The rules are fluffy, and strong in places.
The Raven Guard have a trait for all alignments in second edition.
The Bane of Tyrants. For the Loyalists, gain A+1 and S+1 in a challenge, and another pip against the enemy warlord. Very handy for slay the warlord and resonates well with the Decapitation Strike rite of war as well. Bonus assault reaction is good.
The Hidden Hand. Re-rolling of failed reserve rolls is nice (whilst in reserve) or gain fleet (whilst on the battlefield. Bonus reaction for movement. This feels a bit more bog standard, but could be funky with some smart builds and play.
No Gods or Masters. Is your WS, I, or S less than your enemy? No longer! You match it! For the traitors only, and comes with bonus free reaction full stop once during the game. Probably not that much use for a full praetor given the already nice stat line.
Rites of War.
Decapitation Strike. First edition players will find this one a little bit familiar, although it has had a lot of work and re-working gone into it. Preferred enemy against independent characters is awesome. Gaining shrouded for deep strike is solid. And a whopping 2 extra victory points for slaying the warlord is a plausible game winner on its own. Of course, the downside of only 1 heavy support might be a problem, but you're playing Raven Guard anyway which will be heavy support light regardless. It has to be played quickly and strongly, but that shouldn't be a problem.
Liberation Force. This is a fluffy rite of war but it requires a very, very specific build and set of models at your disposal. Its not one that can be swapped around between games for a static army list. Players have to take allied mortal troops with at least 4 units. You get stubborn all round once per game, the allied detachment also get stubborn, and Raven Guard get hatred of everything when in a close bubble to their allies. There are deeper downsides as well such as not including heavy models or slow models. I can't see this one being played much, but I think it can work well enough with the right build.
Difference to First Edition.
Some strong differences here set apart second edition from first edition. Although it has the look and feel of first, there are a lot of re-works, particularly in the Decapitation Strike rite of war. This is unsurprising given they originally appeared in Book 3: Extermination all those years ago.
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