Warhammer Underworlds - Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven versus The Dread Pageant

Wednesday evening, Amanda and I played another game of Warhammer Underworlds - still trying to decide on a warband for the event on Sunday. This time I tried out the Dread Pageant and Amanda played Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven again, but this time with the Rime-Locked Relics Rivals Deck. 

This is a super-classic Direchasm/Beastgrave era match-up. I think the first Warhammer Underworlds game I ever played was Dread Pageant versus Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven. As was the first game I played with Amanda!

I figured if I'm building at Hedonites of Slaanesh Vanguard force to play Spearhead games in the soon-to-be-released new edition of Age of Sigmar, I should at least CONSIDER bringing the one Hedonites warband to the event. I love the models of this warband, but I've always struggled with playing them... things just never really worked out... I don't recall winning very many games with them... It got marginally better when I put together a deck (which would now be called a "Relic" deck) and that did okay... but because I was only playing against Amanda at the time, she got bored of playing against them and I kind of stopped playing them... 

Amanda was trying out a totally new deck again this evening. She's played AGAINST Rime-locked Relics a number of times - Orion's played with them a lot. I used them with Thundrik's Profiteers, just last Friday! But she pays very little attention to what others are doing and what cards they're playing! 

I set up fairly aggressively - I had an objective card called Godseekers - which gave two glory if all surviving fighters were in Enemy Territory... Also I had an objective that required a Friendly Fighter be adjacent to TWO Enemy Fighters and one that required taking an Enemy Fighter on and Objective token out of action... The last one was tough... one one hand I KNEW she would jump Kyrssa and/or Lethyr onto Objectives and 3/4 of my warband could take either out with one successful attack... BUT... my warband only inspires if there are a total of SIX wound counters on fighters... and KILLING them means there are no wound counters on them... so I had to focus on ones that could take more damage (and maybe shoot one of them with Hadzu, who only dealt 

In the first round, Kyae shot Glisette dealing one damage. 

Vasillac charged Morgwaeth and missed. 

Morgwaeth maneuvered around Vasillac and hit. (so that's ME with three Damage tokens!)

Slakeslash charged Morgwaeth and hit, dealing two to her, and one to himself... boom... SIX Damage dealt and my entire warband inspires. 

I had a card that healed one of Vasillacs wounds. 

Is this two of the same picture...? I guess... 

Ah well... So that freed up Glisette to charge Lethyr - who was on an objective token and take her out of action, scoring me a bonus glory for the Objective Card! 

Khamyss charged Vasillac and hit, thinking it was going to take him out -as she had forgotten I'd used a card to heal him! 

Hadzu moved up and shot at Khamyss and missed. 

I scored for everyone being in enemy territory and one for all having move or charge tokens that I'd drawn to replace the surge I'd scored earlier... 

Starting off round two, Vasillac stabbed Morgwaeth taking her out of action. 

Then Khamyss killed Hadzu... and no one got to inspire because Morgwaeth was gone (She has a special ability to inspire a Friendly Fighter every time an Enemy Fighter is taken out of action). I played deadly embrace which allowed Hadzu to attack back before he died, and he hit and dealt Khamyss one damage... 

Slakeslash charged Khamyss... and MISSED!! Whoopsie! 

Khamyss hit Slakeslash and knocked it off the objective it was on.

Glissette stabbed and killed Khamyss 

Kyrae shot and killed Glissette. (I briefly considered using Shared Pain - which allows a Friendly Fighter that takes damage to transfer the Damage to a Friendly fighter within three hexes and pass all the damage dealt to Slakeslash - who could take it! In the end I didn't as it would have left THREE fighters with only one or two wounds left... It meant I couldn't score an objective I had which required holding two objectives... but it would probably keep Vasillac and Slakeslash alive and the two of them could deal some SERIOUS damage! 

Vasillac stabbed and killed Lethyr... 

It was quite the SLAUGHTER!!

The Third Round started with only Kyrae left. Amanda went first and shot at Vasillac, hitting and dealing one damage! (he had only one left... but I was still holding onto my shared pain card from ROUND ONE! 

Then Slakeslash charged and killed Kyrae... 

I had to charge with Slakeslash to keep him within three of Vasillac, in case my first attack missed. If it had been Vasillac that went... and missed... and Kyrae attacked and hit, Slakeslash would not be close enough to use Shared Pain (and pass any damage dealt to Slakeslash - who could take it!)

Also, if Slakeslash missed, and Kyrae just attacked again, Slakeslash would be supporting and also support when Vasillac charged. Amanda probably wouldn't have done that, she'd have charged vasillac, but at least Slakeslash would be close to soak wounds and maybe move in and attack after Vasillac did a charge...? I don't know... 

I had given Slakeslash an upgrade that increased its Damage to 3, but Amanda had given Kyrae an upgrade that reduced Damage by one... which meant the blow itself wouldn't take her out... I briefly considered NOT pushing her back into the Lethal Hex and finishing her off... on the chance that I could get Vasillac in next to her and score Excess of Carnality (two or more Friendly Fighters next to the same Enemy Fighter)... but she probably woudn't have stayed there and it could potentially give her a chance to score more things and/or take out Vasillac... so I just finished her off!!

This actually allowed Amanda to score an objective for two points! (a friendly fighter with a rime-locked relic is taken out of action!?) 

I cycled through objectives and move Vasillac to score Excess of Paramountcy (for my leader holding an objective in enemy territory) along with Excess of Indolency (No enemy fighters with move or charge tokens!) 

In the end I scored THIRTEEN Glory!! Amanda only scored... five...? She was pretty cranky about it... but did admit there were some pretty cool cards in the deck she was playing with and there was "definitely something here" and she'd try it again... and acknowledged that it was probably because she hadn't read the cards before trying to play with them!?

I don't fault her for not being able to do that. I know that **I** have a really hard time reading cards and figuring out what they really mean and how they work together without seeing how it works in the game... I need a LOT of plays with a warband/deck before I can remotely feel competent with them... and that's why we're playing games all week!