Red Ants of Aunstrom by Scytale
These little buggers can do some damage if the swarm manages to lock the enemy down. The question is, for their low point cost, do they do enough (creatively, thematically, and in actual gameplay) to earn a spot in Valhalla?
Balance
The Ants are a cheap 4-man squad, worth 10 points apiece. They share that designation with one of the game’s love to hate squads, Deathreavers. Both squads have a movement power that allows them to keep the front line “full”, although the Ants’ is more active and the Rats’ is more passive. The Ants give up 2 defense and Disengage for extra attack power, both in abilities and base stats. All in all, the ants seem to fill a different role than the reavers, but they stack up comparably balance-wise.
Theme
Giant ants fit Heroscape just fine. We already have giant spiders and a giant insect (Sujoah) so that works. They’re apparently natives of Valhalla, which makes sense as that is where the Fyorlags are from. Ants in nature often are very organized and militaristic, so I like the class of soldiers here. The playstyle they lend themselves to is very relentless, so that fits well. The only thing I thought was slightly off was their move. I really expected it to be 7, and I kept thinking it should have been higher. I got used to it after a while, and it has good gameplay reasons, so it worked for me after some adjustment. Aunstrom is a region of Valhalla referenced in official backstory/fiction, so that makes perfect sense.
Creativity
Horde Attack really worked well as a way to keep the Red Ants up in the action, and Cutting Mandibles gave them incentive for staying engaged with their opponents. Both powers are easy to understand after a single reading, and both powers communicate the theme well in a very creative way.
Playability
The Red Ants are interesting to evaluate, because each figure is so inexpensive, and so it’s sometimes hard to tell their full impact on a game. They also have a few different uses possible, as a kind of shark squad or as a screen, which is a fascinating dichotomy, as those are usually thought of as opposites. However, they can work as a screen (especially against low-attack figures), because you can continually bring more Ants up without losing attacks. If your opponent is rolling hot attack dice, that doesn’t work so well. An engaged Red Ant acts like a shark, with pretty high attack and low defense, but unengaged, they can be mostly ignored.
Obviously, the Ants work better against melee figures, but not so much as you might expect. If you can engage ranged figures, and keep them engaged, it’s easy to take them down. In Heat of Battle the ants can be devastating if your opponent doesn’t place carefully. To help keep the Ants engaged, I like pairing them with Marcus for an extra move, and road maps always help them as well.
The best army that I found for Ants was usually 3-4 squads of Ants, and then adding Raelin, Syvarris, MDG, KA, or others to fill your point total. Less than 3 squads of Ants is not very effective, and 5 fills your start zone most of the way, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for anything else.
My favorite strategy with the Ants was (especially against melee armies, such as Cathar Spearmen or Phantom Knights) to let the action take place closer to the Ants’ starting zone, allowing for your Ants to continue to move up as they were killed. When they were able to stay close to the action, the Ants could take down even ranged squads like Microcorp Agents or Havech Eradicators, but when they overextended, they were easy to beat.
All in all, I loved the Red Ants and the decisions they forced, and think they absolutely deserve their place in Valhalla.
I vote 
to induct the Red Ants of Aunstrom into the Soldiers of Valhalla.