Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm - First Game

 I did finally get to try out Warhammer Underworlds last night. Because we were so focused on figuring out how to actually play and stuff, I didn't take nearly enough notes or pictures to put together a full, blow-by-blow game report, like I'd originally hoped/planned. Instead, this will just be more of a general review and impressions... with a few pictures.... 

I recruited Finnegan to play - Amanda said she'd try it out at some point, but had some work to do last night. Finnegan was happy to play, though, it didn't take TOO much coercion. 

First thing we had to do was figure out who was going to play which warband. I left it up to Finnegan. He said he'd LIKE to have played the Dread Pageant, because they looked cooler and the Slaangor nasty, but would "let me play them" because he knew I was interested in the Hedonites. I quickly disabused abused him of that notion, and that I was more than okay to play the Daughters of Khaine! I mean, I picked up Morgwaeth's Blood-Coven to be MY warband and even bought the fancy dice to go with them!!!

So, Finnegan ended up playing the Dread Pageant - Hedonites of Slaanesh. The sworn enemies of the Daughters of Khaine... 

And I played Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven - Daughters of Khaine. 

There is a card for each fighter in the warbands that has all their stats and any special actions they might have. Much like Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress, they all have an inspired and uninspired side - always starting on the latter. On the uninspired side it lists the condition under which they become inspired. On the inspired side SOMETHING improves usually better attacks and/or a new special action and/or increased movement and/or defence. 

There is quite the process of setting up: We started by rolling off and the winner decides who will select the first game board... 

I won the roll-ff, so I made Finnegan pick first. There are advantages and disadvantages to picking first. There is one board per player (3-4 player games can be played). You select the board that will be your home turf. The disadvantage to going first is that whoever picks second also gets to decide how to orient their board in relation to the first - which can have a huge affect on on how the game is played. 

The advantage to picking first is you get to place objective markers first and as there are five, the first to place will get to place three and the one who went second places only two of them. 

After setting up the boards and placing Objective an Lethal Hex Tokens, cards are drawn. 

Warhammer Underworlds is very much a card driven game.... with Miniatuers. I mean, the mechanic are there that you COULD play the game as a straight miniature skirmish WITHOUT any of the cards... but the cards kind of determine how you win and give you fighters all sorts of boosts - temporary (through Ploys) and permanent (through Upgrades). 

There is a deck-building element to the game - like Collectible Card Games or Living Card Games - in that you play from your own decks that you CAN customize. There are "pre-built" decks that come with the base game and expansion warbands and we just played with those to start with (as recommended). Some cards (like all of the basic, pre-built decks) are warband specific and can only be used by the warband they come with, and others are generic and can be added to any warband's deck when customizing. There are generic cards that come with the base games and with EACH of the expansion warbands (dirty little ploy - to get ALL of the generic cards, one would need to buy ALL of the warband expansions!? Or try and pick them up off ebay...) 

There are two decks: Objective deck and Power deck. 

The Objective Deck only ever has 12 cards in it. You draw three to start and always have three in your hand - unless you burn through them - there is no reshuffling and reusing discards! These cards determine how you win - each describes a condition that allows you to collect Glory Points - the player with the most Glory Points at the end of the game wins. Some are scored immediately when you do a thing, some are scored if certain conditions are met in the End Phase at the end of each of the three Rounds. There is an option to discard you entire hand of three when you first draw them at the beginning of the game, or individual cards in each End Phase. New Objective Cards are always draw whenever one is played or discarded. Most award one Glory Point, but some award more - there are a lot that award two, or sometimes three, and there are a few that award five or six! 

You do gain Glory Points for each of your opponents that are killed... but the cards give you so much more... 

The Power Deck must have at least 20 cards and no more than half can be ploys (i.e. at least half must be upgrades). There are two basic card types; Ploys and Upgrades (there are spells, which have a different symbol, but are basically ploys, but can only be played if you have a wizard/magic-user on the table). You start with five and that's all you get for the entire first round (unless you burn an activation to draw one!?). There is an option to ddiscard the entire first hand and redraw, and you can discard any number of Power Cards in the End Phase of each round before drawing up to five again. 

Play is very much directed by the cards you end up with in your hand. It is very reminiscent of playing CCGs (I never played Magic: the Gathering, but I DID play a LOT of Illuminati: New World Order, back in the day, and a few others like Rage, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Kult, and Dune) or games like Rave for the Galaxy. With the initial drawing of cards there is a "Well what do I do with THIS shit?" in that moment and then you have to start planning - figuring out how you are going to score those objective cards as quickly as possible - making best used of the Power cards to do so - and many of those decisions will affect your play throughout the rest of the game (this is the part that reminds me of Race for the Galaxy). Of course, this plan has to include some flexibility because your opponent is very much going to try and utterly RUIN you plan, either on puropose (bacause theyv'e figured out what you're trying to do), or simply inadvertantly in the process of executing there OWN cunning and subtle (or... NOT-so-subtle) plan.  So, after you opponents initial activation or two or the first round and/or your second drawing of Power Cards and Ojectives at the end of the first Round, there is very much a "Well how can I UNFUCK this situation!?" feeling!

I think we'll have to play a bit more to get a real sense of which cards are genuienely useful and which could be replaced... There were a few that I drew that were just bonkers good! Others were SO situation dependant to almost be of no use at all and did end up being discarded. 

Starting to set up... and then we realized we'd forgotten to place the extra Lethal Hex tokens.... whoopise... 

All set up and ready to start round one. 

There are ONLY three rounds in the game (kind of like Warcry - or at least the game we played, someone told me there has been errata that make it four rounds instead of three) and only four activations (per side) - which make it FAST AND FURIOUS - and with only four activations, if you have more that four fighters in your warband... some of them are probably not going to do anything... at least in the first round! 

Part way through the first round. 

At the beginning of each round you roll off to determine who goes first - on the first round, the player that finished setting up first gets a bonus - which gives an advantage to warbands with less fighters - and, when playing with an even number of fighters, an advantage to the player who started setting up first (which, in turn allows the player setting up second to react in their set up). 

The Dread Pageant went first and Finnegan's first move kind of ENTIRELY WRECKED my plans for the first entire round and I was just reacting to all of his actions!? Yikes! His first activation was to charge into the middle of my warband and KILL Lethyr - one of my Witch Aelves - with his Slakeslash his hulking Slaangor!? GAH!? 

Things looked like they were going pretty poorly for me. Finnegan wondered if perhaps the Dread Pageant was a little over-powered - While I conceded that things were not going great for me, I wasn't willing to write off Morgwaeth and her sister Daughters just yet! 

I think this was the beginning of the Second Round...? Finnegan had taken out one of the Lethyr and Khamyss - the Sister of Slaughter (who seems like she could be pretty nasty... given the chance... and a few upgrades..). By the end of the first round, I'd taken out Vasillac the Gifted - The leader of the Dread Pageant - and scored a couple of objectives - that allowed me to do a play couple of upgrades and inspire Morgwaeth...  

In the second round I focused my efforts on taking down Slakeslash -  the Slaangor. Partly because he was the most dangerous thing out there, and partly because I had an objective card that scored glory if I did three separate attacks on a single model in a round (so I had to start with the ones that didn't do much damage and risk taking it out BEFORE I attacked a third time!). 

Some of the Upgrades I gave to Morgwaeth the Bloodied. 

End of Second Round/Beginning of the Third Round...

Things had REALLY turned around for me and I drew some AMAZING cards at the end of the Second Round. I THINK I wend first, and with my first activation Morgwaeth took out Glissete.

AT this point Finngean conceded. Part of me wanted to play out the game - just so see how it would end and what the finally Glory Point tally would be. As it was, I was winning 9-5... but I probably woudl have taken out Hadzu (for one Glory Point) and I might have had an objective card that scored a point for taking out an opponent under a certain condition or by a certain player for another, and I definitely had a hybrid card that scored three Glory Points if I either controlled all Objectives in the Opponents territory OR took ALL opponents out of action - so potentially another 4-5 more... and if Surge Objective were played (the ones that are played immediately) there was always the potential to pick up MORE objectives that may or may not have been able to be scored. HAD we played on I'm pretty sure, based on the Objective Cards he said he had, would have been able to score at least three more... possibly more, depending on which cards HE drew to replace them... 

I like it. Definitely looking forward to playing more and figuring out more of the intricacies of the game and trying out the different warbands (once I get them painted!?). Finnegan is also interested enough he'll play again. 

Amanda said she'd try it out. I'm not so sure she's going to be interested AT ALL in the deck-building element. I seem to recall she played INWO a few times, but only with my pre-made decks... and I had to explain what the theme was and HOW to play them before hand... So, I may have to build decks FOR her, like I did with INWO. Of course, if she loses, she can just blame me for building her a crappy deck... Ah, well... 

I like Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven - they have a lot going for them. Morgwaeth, herself, is nasty - and just gets nastier when inspired and upgraded... While the entire warband automatically inspires in the Third Round, Morgwaeth also has the ability to inspire a Friendly Fighter (including herself) whenever an opponent is take out of action. The Melusia has potential, I'm not sure I really used her to her full advantage. The sister of Slaughter seems like a glass cannon - has potential to be nasty, but is very fragile. The Witch Aelves are like speed bumps. They're there. They can take objectives and give support, but most of the Dread Pageant could take them out with a single hit. 

The Dread Pageant seems like it has potential. It feels like it would be SUPER hard to actually inspire them - Surviving members need to have a total of SIX wound counters on their cards!? THAT is a super bad and potentially deadly situation to BE in... and can be manipulated by your opponent - by not bothering to even attack Hadzu or Glisette with any attacks that only to one damage? I don't know... I'll have to play them to get a better sense. 

Not sure if we're going to switch warbands for our next game or play the same - to get a better sense of them before trying something new...? I REALLY hope we get to play again BEFORE I get more warbands done (i.e. in the next few days)!? AND before I forget anything I might have learned from this first game!!

That's it for now, I'll probably have a (very) brief update on what went down in January later this evening...