Saturday afternoon Amanda and I found ourselves with not a lot to do, so we sat down to play a quick game of Warhammer Underworlds... which ended up turning into THREE games of Warhammer Underworlds.
I wanted to try out Blackpowder's Buccaneeers - because I'd just finished them up. I'm not super excited about the warband... The way they inspire and the whole mechanism for how Blackpowder's Gunderbuss works all seemed pretty convoluted and a LOT all had to happen at the right time, together to make it all work... I'm sure that if it did all work out, they'd be GREAT... but there is so much out of ones control with dice rolls and card draws... I mean, ANY warband id going to "work out" if everything goes right for them. So I went into the games with not a lot of hope...
Amanda wanted to try something new and when showing her all the options, she decided the Dread Pageant was pretty and would like to give them a go... She had absolutely no recollection of ever seeing them before, despite the fact that I've played them a lot... against her... There was a Relic Deck in the box I'd made up and let her just play that...
For not particular reason, other than to have a consistent board... and maybe, I guess, Gorlock Blackpowder is a pirate and was released during the Harrowdeep era.. I just got out the Harrowdeep/Nethermaze boards.
GAME ONE
I won the roll off and made Amanda choose board first, and she chose the Ultimatum Engines board and then I chose on the Profane Larder board and oriented in along the long edges.
Vasillac started things off charging up to an ojbective location and stabbing poor little Peggz to death...
and used the Gory to upgrade with... something...? (it didn't really matter..)
Blackpowder used a reaction card to saunter on up close to Vasillac...
Screech followed along and then Kagey and Mange the monkey charged and stabbed Vasillac back, just a little, but it was enough to use their light-fingered Reaction ability to BREAK the upgrade and generate a Swag Token for Blackpowder - which would allow him to shoot his Gunderbuss some more!
And here I thought that ridiculous ability would NEVER work!?
Glissette danced up and tried to stab... Blackpowder...? I think...? But I started rolling like Amanda usually does with me and nothing could hit ANY of my fighters!?
Blackpowder blasted Glisette apart with his Gunderbus (because I somehow forgot that his giant-ass "cutlass" had a range of two as well!?
Slakeslash joined in the brawl... and... didn't do much, if I recall...?
Maybe it attacked the monkey as well and tied and batted it back...?
Round Two and Slakeslash is charging again!
Gorlock Blackpowder finished off Vasillac.
Blows were exchanged between Blackpowder and Slakeslash... Slakeslash took a pretty hard beating.
And the charged off across the field to attack Hadzu leaving the monkey to fight Slakeslash.
With the "aid" of Kagey and Shreek, Blackpowder murdered and ate Hadzu...
Slakeslash took a swing at the annoying monkey...
much to his regret... (Slakeslash only had one wound left the monkey finished him off with ping damage...)
Leaving the board entirely clear of enemies! Harrrrrr!
In the end I scored TWELVE Glory Points and Amanda only scored three... I cannot credit any sort of skilled play... I had some INSANE luck - like the kind of luck Amanda usually has!? I rolled a LOT of critical hits and defence rolls... I happened to draw the right mix of cards and the right time...
I'm still convinced the inspire mechanism and using the Gunderbuss is still convoluted and difficult to pull off unless you are very luck in both dice rolling and card drawing. I just happened to be both in this game and it worked out really well for me!
Also, Amanda was playing with a deck she hadn't even LOOKED at and had no memory of playing against these and so had no idea what to do with them - despite me trying to explain the basics... wounding, inspiring, then MURDERING!!!
The first game went rather quickly so Amanda suggested we play another!
GAME TWO
All set up for Game Two. Amanda chose the Profane Larder board, which I'd used in the previous game. Initially she'd takend the Chamber of Genesis board (or maybe the Hall of Sublimination...?) - one of the two boards in the Harrowdeep/Nethermaze set that didn't have a hazard hex - which I pointed out she might want if she's ONE wound away from inspiring, sometimes it might be worth it to run through one just to inspire the warband, so she switched and took the Profane Larder which had one close to one of the board edges. I chose second, so I took the n the Chamber of Genesis Board and oriented it so that hazard hex was at the back of her territory and not of much use to her...
Vasillac started things off by charging on to a objective marker in my territory and trying to stab the monkey!
She really did not like that monkey...
Kagey charged Vasillac with the aid of that monkey!
Then I used a ploy to move him to an objective just across the border into enemy territory... I can't recall if this immediately scored me an objective card...? I feel like i might have... Because it but Kagey dangerously close (like, within range) of Glisette's gange two Dazzling Glaive attack...
Slakeslash charged Blackpowder. Blows were exchanged.
Then Blackpowder charged around the blocked hexes to kill Hadzu, who'd been sneaking around there...
Then Blackpowder ate Shreek...
Blackpowder wasn't in much danger, at that point. He'd only taken one damage. But Shreek had also taken one damage and eating the bird removed both damage counters from the game and made it that much harder for the Dread Pageant to inspire.
This was a tricky match up for them to inspire... They need there to be six wound counters on surviving fighters... The problem is, most my warband had only two wounds, and three of the four of them dealt two wounds in damage with each attack - which would kill everyone but Blackpowder outright with one blow.
The Relic Deck I'd built for them (ages ago, before they were even called "Relic" decks) has a lot of ping in it (stuff that deals one damage), but a lot of them were conditional... and she had to have it in her hand when the conditions arose!? She was definitely starting to figure it out by Game Two.
Round Two - I managed to get all my crew onto Objective tokens. I had a few cards that allowed me to score if I had one, or more, fighters on objectives in enemy territory.
Slakeslash removed one of those...
I started taking fewer pictures at this point as the game was getting a bit harder with Amanda finally figuring out how to play the Dread Pageant... and I was trying to figure out how to move forward with fewer good dice rolls and not getting the cards I needed in the right order!?
Blackpowder beating down Slakeslash..
Blackpowder and Vasillac gave each other some prods or shots at a distance...
At the end of the game there was only Blackpowder and one of his gnoblar crew and Vasillac. I won the game 11-10... Amanda was catching up. (and I realized later I may have misread a card that allowed an extra die in one of my attacks that took out Slakeslash, that I may not have actually been allowed to use...? so...)
After this game Amanda suggested "best two out of three"... and I suggested that maybe she didn't understand how that worked. Though, in most Warhammer Underworlds tournament formats, where players play three games back to back to back and the best two of three determines the winner, they DO play a third game, even if a player has won the first two... maybe that's what she'd been thinking of (as I'd recently been telling her about stuff I'd learned about Warhammer Underworlds tournaments...
Playing the third game had less to do with tournament formats and more to do with we had the time and have both realized that playing a warband a few times in a row gives us a better feeling for how the warband works and is meant to be played - and which of the cards in the deck are actually working and which are duds that could be edited out when building a Nemesis (or Relic) deck...
GAME THREE
I took even less pictures in this game as it was just a shitshow from round one. Totally forget to get a picture of the set up.
Glisette started things off by running up and trying to cut the monkey in two...
Why so much hate for the monkey!? To he honest, I was glad they kept trying to attack the monkey, as it had a better defence than the gnoblars - and that probably saved it more than once!
Blackpowder used the reaction ploy that allowed him a move action after an enemy move action... that I hoped might help the monkey...
It did not...
Gnoblars head to the enemy Objectives while the Dread Pageant swarmed into my own territory. (We each had objective that score for being in or holding objectives in enemy territory!?)
having swapped territory we kind of stayed there for the rest of the game.
hanging out in enemy territory shooting the Big Gun...
For my final activation, Kagey charged Glisette... I'm not sure why..? Was Kagey inspired and dealing two damage...? Was she already wounded. Kagey failed, so it didn't matter...
It was clear that Amanda had figured out how to play to the Dread Pageants strengths - and Objective cards - as she only lost one fighter this game and won ten to four! There was also an element of things-did-not-work-out-for-me (hence only FOUR glory points). But she definitely figured the warband out and played a good game!
The rest of the evening we spent watching Season Two of Community on Netflix (as we'd noticed it was leaving the platform at the end of the month) and I worked on finishing up Elathain's Soulraid and Cyreni's Razors - one of which Amanda was hoping to try out on Sunday in our game against Orion and Nic.
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