Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard - First Games

A whole new edition of Warhammer Underworlds was realeased this past weekend on Saturday. While there have been little rule tweaks and minor changes and additions along the way with each new setting/"Season" of the game, this was the first true NEW EDITION for the game! ALL of the stuff released up until that point was still stuff you could play with Warhammer Underworlds: Wintermaw - the last release (realier this year) of the previous edition. It wasn't COMMON to find people playing games with the older cards - but you could use any of them in relic format! It also wasn't terribly common to see people playing with a lot of the older warbands - largely due to "power creep" - the older ones just aren't as effective against newer warbands... but it could all be used. 

ALL the old cards are no longer playable with this new edition. I mean, you CAN still play with ALL THE OLD STUFF... just not in games using this new edition! 

Orion went and picked up her copy early on Saturday and then came by my place to play a few games. We had to use fighter and warscroll cards I printed off at home on our black and white laser printer... which were not the easiest to read!  

GAME ONE

Orion played Ironsoul's Condemnors and I tried playing the Thricefold Discord. Mostly because they only needed three fighter cards printed and cut out each! 

I played with "Flex" deck; Pillage and Plunder, which had me Delving treasure tokens (flipping them over) to gain glory points. 

Orion played with the "Stike" deck; Blazing Assault... which scores a lot for being aggressive and fighting and killing stuff...? 

The new board is... well, ONE board! No more each player picking one and setting them up offset or lengthways! 

Brodus started things off by charging in and giving Vexmore a good bash! 

Bit of a melee going on off to one side and Vashtiss feeling a little left out! 

Tavian taking a swing at Vexmore. I think they took the daemon out... I was down to two by the end of the first Round. 

VAshtiss whacking Brodus in the back, trying to finish him off! 

Ganging up on Lascivyr... they have one more wound than in the previous edition... but wasn't enough to keep them alive against a pair of big powerful Stormcast brutes. 

Starting off the third round, Vahstiss attacked Brodus and Finally finished him off!

Then she moved as far away as she could to just try and stay alive and maybe flip that last treasure token...? I think I had a card that moved her to a Treasure token or start hex in enemy territory... and then I moved to try and stay out of their charge range...? 

Some how Tavian got to Vashtiss... with some kind of boost to speed... I was excited because I actually rolled a crit and a success for defence.... 

Somehow Orion was rolling FIVE dice and rolled a Crit and FOUR successes!?

Orion won 16-9. 

Vexmor is arguably worse in this edition... deals less damage and lost the Locus of Indolence ability... They gained the Indolence ability which gives them +1 attack dice and grievous (+1 damage) IF they don't have any move or charge tokens... Meh... 

Vashtiss also deals less damage AND had lower defence!? Loses the Locus of Paramouncy (adjacent enemies cannot be supported). She and Lascivyr have a new ability called Evasive on the warscroll, allowing them to roll an attack die when they would take damage and on hammers or crits reduces by one to minimum of one... 

Lascyvr has lower defence, but one more would/health... No locus of Carnality. 

Being Daemons of Slaanesh, I really wanted to love these and have some fun with them... they did a lot of FUN stuff in the previous edition... but they're feeling pretty... "meh"... 

GAME TWO

Four our second game we switched things up. Orion had a go at playing the Thricefold Discord, but played them with the "Mastery" deck - Countdown to Cataclysm! I played the only other warband I'd printed and cut out cards for - the Thorns of the Briar Queen - and paired them with the last deck in the box, the "Take and Hold" deck; Emberstone Sentinels. 

I took a lot less pictures for some reason...

This was the state of affairs at the end of Round One/Beginning of Round Two.

Things had NOT been going great for me. I was down three and another was wounded - every activation Orion had (but one) killed one of my Chainrasps (and the other one wounded one...) I had dealt some damage, but the Daemons of Slaanesh were all still there and taking a Chainrasp out with every shot. 

I was concentrating a little too hard on the game and forgot to take any more pictures until the very end!? I finished off the two wounded Daemons and killed the third... but had lost two more Chainrasps in the process. 

I'd gotten my last two fighters onto Treasure Tokens in Enemy Territory (even have Delve one to make it a Treasure Token again) to score one last Objective Card worth THREE POINTS... then realized, after all that effort to get them there, it had said two or more friendly fighter WITH A COMBINED BOUNTY OF THREE holding... ALL of my fighters are only worth ONE bounty... I'd have needed THREE fighters to score it... 

Somehow I eeked out a victory; 14-11...? 

I like it so far. As with everything, it will take some getting used to. I'll need to play a few games with each of the four decks and then maybe start tweaking them. while those that LOVE deck building are lamenting the lack of cards, I don't mind that there is limited stuff, for the moment. Less stuff to learn/keep track of. Less overwhelming when trying to decide which to pair with which. 

There will be two more decks in two and a half weeks. Reckless Fury is another Strike Deck, and Wrack and Ruin is a Mastery deck... 

Hopefully I can find something good to pair Wurmspat with and they won't suck so bad in this edition!

By the time we were done, it was later in the afternoon and there'd been some freezing rain and the streets were like skating rinks and I was just not feeling like going out in that... I figured I would wait until Sunday when it was forecast to be +7°C! 

Indeed it did warm up - and was really quite nice out! 

So I rolled out to Dragon's Den Games and picked up my copy.  

all the stuff in the box!

I also rode out to Staples to pick up the cards I'd ordered printed... I only uploaded four of the warbands to start with. I've never had things printed there before and didn't want to just PRINT THEM ALL in case the print quality or paper quality sucked (I ordered them on card stock). They turned out pretty nice.... 

After an evening of "arts and crafts" (cutting and then gluing the fronts and backs of fighter cards and warscrolls together) I have fighter cards and warscrolls for four warbands ready; Thricefold Discord, Mollog's Mob, Zondara's Gravebreakers, and Cyreni's Razors. The first three are ones I like the idea of and thought would be fun to try playing. Cyreni's Razors was one of the ones that got it's own separate pdf and custom Warscroll that I thought Amanda might play. 

All the warbands that were released in the last year got separate pdfs with Fighter cards and custom Warscrolls. There are sixteen that are being re-released in four boxes of four that are only getting printed fighter cards and warscrolls - either in the boxes with the miniatures, or in one deck including all sixteen (conveniently, I have fifteen of the sixteen, so I'll be buying the deck!). 

The rest of the warbands - those not released in the last year that are not being re-released... did get PDF fighter cards, but did not get custom warscrolls. There are two very generic warscrolls for each Grand Alliance (Order, Chaos, Death, Destruction) from which those could be picked. They were released in one big 47-page pdf... and I didn't want to mess with print ranges and stuff the first time I uploaded stuff, and definitely didn't want to print off all 47 pages in that first go around - since I didn't know how it would all work out.... I'll probably be printing off all the cards for all the others soon enough. 

That'll be a lot of cards to cut and paste... which will I do first!? Maybe the Generic Grand Alliance Warscrolls... and then Wurmspat (for me!) and Morgwaeth's Blade Coven and Elathain's Soulraid for Amanda! The soulraid looks fun, 

Warhammer Underworlds: STILL MORE on Satuday

On Saturday, 29 June, for the FIFTH day in a row, Amanda and i played a few games of Warhammer Underworlds in preparation for the Tournament on Sunday! 

Saturday evening, while Finnegan was running his role-playing game in the Game Room downstairs, we set up on the kitchen table (like fucking PEASANTS!?) and played a few games of Warhammer Worlds.

I'd played Sean the day before and he was using Ironsoul's Condemnors and did pretty okay with them and suggested they were probably the easiest, most straightforward warband to play in Rivals, so I'd suggested it to Amanda for the tournament. She'd tried them out the night before and done better with them than she'd done with Morgwaeth's...

So she wanted to practice with Ironsoul's Condemnors a bit more... and I wanted to have another go at playing Thudrik's Profiteers. 

Poor Enrik Ironhail... I don't think I've activated him ONCE in four games. Always killed in the first round before he even gets to do something!? 

Having learned a little bit from the night before, I set up quite a bit closer... but forgot about getting OBJECTIVE TOKENS in No One's Territory within two hexes of my most forward starting hexes... doh!? 

Setting up that close did put me in "pew-pew range"...

But it also put me in charge range... 

The Condemnors just took the Profiteers apart, one-by-one... 

Despite setting up closer to No-One's and Enemy territory... I STILL couldn't score Objectives... 

Because EVERYONE DIED too quickly... 

I did WORSE than the previous game with this match up... previous game had been a loss at 10-7... this game I lost 14-4!?

WTF!? I was feeling pretty discouraged about Thundrik's Profiteers... if you can get lucky and score a few objectives early on... and inspire the fighters, they can do okay... but it requires excellent card draws and some really good dice rolls all through the first round... otherwise, they are kind of fucked... 

We played a second game, but Amanda wanted to so something different and wanted try out The Dread Pageant. I probably should have played Thundrik's against these - just to try them against something different... but I was feeling pretty down at this point.... So I played Skabbik's Plaguepack... 

All ready to go, Amanda let me have the first turn. 

In the first activation, Poxlix charged up the board, hit Hadzu, dealing one damage and pushing him back into the lethal hex and killing him... BOOM!!!

In the Power Step, Amanda pushed Slakeslash through a lethal hex, purposely injuring them (a normal tactic for the Dread Pageant as they inspire when there are 6 wound tokens on fighter cards - any fighter cards - and Slakeslash has 5 wounds so he can usually be counted on to take a few for the team - and he does have a method of healing after the warband inspires. 

On her first activation, Slakeslash attacked Rikkit, and MISSED!?

On my second activation Rabidius charged up behind Rikkit and attacked Slakeslash, HIT them, dealing three wounds and pushing them back into a lethal hex for a fifth wound taking them out of action... 

On my second activation...

Amanda was not pleased.... 

I suggested we just reset. 

So we reset with the same board and all the same objective tokens... but Amanda didn't put Hadzu between a lethal hex and an Objective token. 

This game went less well for me... 

I forgot to continue taking pictures... but the Dread Pageant murdered all but one of my little rats... 

At this point I was really conflicted about what warband I should even take to the tournament... Stick with the ORIGINAL PLAN and take Thundrik's Profiteers...?! Take something completely different..?! Skabbik's..? Dread Pageant!? 

Stay tuned for the Tournament Report, in the next day or two... after a few post about some miniatures I finished over the last few days! 

Warhammer Underworlds - FOUR on Friday!?

Wow... i played FOUR games of Warhammer Underworlds on Friday!?

First I make the 22km round trip (by bicycle) out to the Warhammer Store and played a couple of games with Sean with his Ironsoul's Condemnors warband... 

GAME ONE

For our first game I played Skabbik's Plaguepack.

In the first activation, Gwynne Ironsoul killed Poxlix... which, I mean... that's to be expected... 

It was a target rich environment... I tried to set up far enough back that they couldn't charge too many of my fighters... 

In his second activation, Brodus Blightbane charged Skabbik Plagueseeker, my leader, and killed HIM with one shot... 

Ouch... that... that hurt, losing a leader in the second activation... it rendered half the cards in my hand useless.. 

But, y'know, I kept at it... the rats got a LOT of tricks up their grimy sleeves... 

Itchitt, the back-stabbing little git,  even took one out neat the end of the game! 

I was tabled by the end of the game, but despite that, it was a VERY CLOSE GAME! I lost by one Glory Point - 11-10. For a brief moment I was ahead and thought I might win... but then Sean scored an objective or two in the final end phase and just squeaked past!

So.... I can lose a leader in the opponents second activation with Skabbik's Plaguepack and STILL do not-too-bad... 

GAME TWO

For game two, I decided to switch it up and play Grinkrak's Looncourt. 

Once again, Gwynne Ironsoul started things off by charging and just destroying one of my goblins. 

Tavian of Sarnasus followed on killing Skolko and Pronk... 

Grib, da Wonky Lance, charged gored Brodus Blightbane with his squig's horn - on a charge it's +1 damage - dealing three - then I played Stick in the Boot which allows a fighter, after their activation, to deal one damage to an adjacent fighter that is Vulnerable (i.e. one wound left!) to finish him off! Yay! 

I think this was the end of Round One... mostly me running away, trying to score objective that don't require being neat the big scary Stormcast! 

They cought up with me eventually, because I can't move EVERYONE... 

Grinkrak was the last one standing of the Looncourt... I can't remember if he survived... 

Again, a super fun and fairly close game - 16-14!!

GAME THREE

When I got home from the Warhammer Store Amanda suggested a game and I suggested trying out Ironsoul's Condemnors. Sean spoke very highly of them as a fairly easy warband to understand and play - and obviously did pretty good with them against me earlier. 

Amanda, not entirely convinced this was going to work out - especially after she'd played a Stormcast Eternals warband last night... and that one had three PLUS a pretty mean Gryph-hound! 

I took Skabbik's Plaguepack against them, to see how different it worked out in the same match-up, but with Amanda playing! 

Itchitt moved up... Rabidius got pushed back, they all ended up in a line. 

Stormcast charged and murdered rats. 

Rats ran around trying to avoid them and score objectives and BEFOUL territories! 

I did score a few objectives... including one worth three for having three areas corrupted in the first (or second?) round?

They did, at some point, gang up on Tavian of Sarnassus and took him down! 

In the end I won this one... 12-4... So Amanda wasn't totally happy, but I DID point out that she did better than either of the games the previous evening... and that despite me suggesting she READ THE CARDS BEFORE WE PLAYED while I was making supper, she decided to do some work emails and only looked at the cards as they were drawn in her first game!? So, of COURSE she wasn't going to do well... 

GAME FOUR

She decided to give them another chance... 

I decided to switch things up again and brought out Thundrik's Profiteers... Which I'm probably taking to the tournament on Sunday... even though it would be way more sensible to take something like Skabbik's Plaguepack... 

Because all but one of my fighters start with only two or three wounds... and one defence... and all of Amanda's fighters start with a 2-Smash attack dealing either two or three damage... I was pretty sure it was going to go like the other games where they just start killing things on their first activation!

So I set up as far back as I could, with as many as possible out of charge range... 

So, on the first round, Gwynne Ironsoul charged and killed Enrik Ironhail... (I swear, that dude is the first to die EVERY GAME!)

Then Brodus Blightbane charged Thundrik and dealt him 3 damage! OUCH! 

Drakkskewer charged into enemy territory and stabbed Tavian of Sarnassus. 

Drakkskewer got in on the action and poked Blightbane, but then Amanda healed him!?

At some point I took out Tavian... and Amanda took out most of my warband. 

At the end of the game, we each had two left - both thundrik and Gwynne Ironsoul had increased their wounds score to five and had both taken damage that left them vulnerable... but neither were taken out of action!

Rather than taking one more swing at Thundrik (which would have scored 2 Glory, if successful), Ironsoul moved on to an Objective to ensure she'd score one. 

It briefly looked like I might squeak by with another victory... but then Amanda scored FOUR Glory Points in the final End Phase and beat me 10-7... 

My biggest mistake here was forgetting that SO MANY of my objective cards REQUIRE that the fighters have to be in ENEMY TERRITORY... and, for fear of the Hard-Hitting ability ot one-shot most of my warriors, I set up as far back as I could, out of range of their charging... but ultimately was too far back for anyone to get TO Enemy Territory?! 

Lesson learned. Accept that warriors will die. Get them moving forward to score all those IN ENEMY TERRITORY Objectives... 

Hopefully we'll get in a few more games on Saturday. I'm not sure Amanda is fully convinced that Ironsoul's is for them and was suggesting trying Magore's fiends with Tooth and Claw - or The Dread Pageant!?

I'm fairly certain I'm bringing Thundrik's... "for the memes" as the cool kids apparently say...!?