Warhammer Underworlds Sunday

This past Sunday Nic and Orion stopped by to play some Warhammer Underworlds for the first time in a month?! 

It's been almost a week... I didn't take a lot of notes... so it will be mostly pictures with limited commentary... 

Both games were played in Shadespire. Orion played Zondara's Gravebreakers with their Faction Rivals Deck. Amanda played Elathain's Soulraid with their Faction Rivals Deck. Nick played the Skinnerkin with a Hungering Parasite Nemesis deck. I played a freshly painted Garreck's Reavers with a Tooth and Claw Nemesis deck I quickly threw together that morning. 

I don't have a post with pictures of the newly painted Garrek's Reavers because the battery on the camera I use for taking good (well... okay...) pictures of miniatures died and I cannot for the life of me find the recharger!?

The undersea Aelves and Ghouls went at it right away. 

ABC - Always Be Charging - was my policy for the game! 

There got to be a bit of a brawl in the center of the battlefield! 

Sneaky ghoul stabbing Tammael in the back! 

Targor and Armulf were killed off pretty quickly... but that kind of worked out for me as I had an objective card that required all fighters have a charge token and if Arnulf hadn't been killed in the first turn without ever activating, I never would have pulled that off... 

Ferlain attacked Garrek... and missed. I charged Blooded Saek in and took out Ferlain... so Zondara went a bit savage!

it was noted how similar Zondara and Gristla look and it was decided that they must be sisters... Sisters that HATE each other... but sisters, none-the-less! 

Someone killed Saek, so it was only Garrek and Karsus (who had only one wound left!) 

Karsus was killed with a ping and Garrek made a last ditch effort to deal some damage! I had a card that dealt one damage to everyone adjacent to me, and there was this nice group of three... If Garrek hit ONE of them they would have died... but he missed and was taken out before he got another swing. 

It was pretty brutal, both mine and Amanda's warbands were utterly wiped out... Still I won - which is a very rare thing when Orion is at the table!!

For our second game we played the Chaos Gargant Scenario from the December 2018 White Dwarf... 

In this one I played Magore's Fiends (sticking with the Khorne theme!) but this time with their Faction Rivals Deck... Amanda played the Dread Pageant with their Faction Rivals Deck. Orion played Hexbane's Hunters with Break Neck Slaughter. Nick played Cyreni's Razors with...? some kind of Nemesis Deck...? 

I just could not hit that Gargant to save my life... 

Aemos killed Ghartok... and I'm not sure why... it gained her one Glory Point, which could have been four if Aemos had hit the Gargant...? (which would have made it a MUCH closer game..!) Not sure if she thought I was some kind of threat...? (I for sure was NOT!?)

I'm not sure the Gargant Scneario holds up with a lot of the more recent rules and things that can be done... I think it COULD still be a fun scenario with some updates... like.. the Gargant cannot be staggered! Cyreni just stood and pinged the Gargant with Hammertide for an entire round, meaning it did NOTHING but go on guard for it's action... 

While everyone else kept beating on it.. well.. Amanda and Orion's warbands kept beating on it... 

Eventually I just said fuck it and went after Hexbane's Hunters... 

Had tried to kill the second dog.. but missed and Slakeslash finished it off... 

Missed a swing at Aemos... 

But dammit they took down Hexbane.. it only took ALL THREE of them?! 

Amanda won this by lots because of the totally broken Sadistic Goad upgrade - an attack upgrade that deals 1 + the target's current wound counters... so she hit it when it was at 12 damage and dealt 13 damage!? 

I'd noticed this sometime back and realized how OP it would be in the scenario. Me mentioning it was the reason Amanda took the Dread Pageant - just to see if it would work out... and it DID!! 

Warhammer Underworlds - The Chaos Gargant Hunt!

I recently finished up my Stand-In Chaos Gargant, so of course we needed to try out the Chaos Gargant scenario from the December 2018 edition of White Dwarf! 

The scenario pits multiple Warhammer Underworlds warbands against a Chaos Gargant! In the scenario Objective decks are not used, instead Glory is only gained from dealing damage to the Gargant or taking out Enemy Fighters - so, good to play a hard-hitting murder-y warband! Until the Gargant is at half wounds, warbands get One Glory for EACH POINT of Damage dealt! After it's down to half wounds warbands recieve One Glory each time they deal damage to the Gargant, regardless of how much damage they dealt. 

The Gargant itself is treated as an additional player which always goes first each round. Each turn, the players roll-off to see who controls the Gargant. On it's first turn each round, the Gargant goes on Guard. Thereafter the Gargant moves (if it can't move it does a Furious Bellow action - dealing One Damage to EVERY fighter on the table). Then it kicks an adjacent fighter, dealing one damage and pushing it one hex. Then it does one of it's attacks - Smashing someone adjacent, or throwing a boulder at someone up to 3 hexes away! 

Instead of playing three rounds, up to four rounds are played. If the Gargant is dead at the beginning of any End Phase the scenario ends and whoever has the most Glory Points wins. If the Gargant is still alive at the beginning of the fourth End Phase, the players ALL LOSE!!

I'd mentioned planning to play the scenario on Reddit and someone mentioned they'd played the scenario and it was fun... but they rarely made it past TWO ROUNDS! Modern Warbands are much more powerful than the warbands of the Shadespire/Nightvault era - when the scenario was written. 

Because the rules were written BEFORE Stagger was a thing, we just said that the Gargant could not be Staggered (otherwise it would just be two easy if Cyreni's Razors showed up. Cyreni's Hammertide action would just BREAK the Gargant's AI)

(I think maybe after the first turn or two, we forgot to 

Nic and Orion joined us to try out the Gargant Scenario. Orion brought she super-deadly Hexbane's Hunters. Nic decided to try out Ephilim's Pandaemonium. Amanda decided to try Storm of Celestus - because it's a shooty warband and they wouldn't have to get that close! I rolled out with Magore's Fiends! 

Just because of the way the boards worked out and where the Gargant was in relation to my starting hexes - I started with Zharkus the Bloodsighted adjacent to the Gargant. As the Gargant spent it's first turn going on Guard, I figured I'd get to hit it first and deal some damage and not even have to charge... 

Zharkus missed... 

Fighters started moving in - mostly shooting the first few activations

Conveniently, I controlled the Gargant the first turn it did things and I moved it forward, Kicked Apo'trax and chucked a boulder at Flamespooler. I was a little concerned that flamespooler might just start throwing it's flamsplash attack every turn - which splashes all adjacent fighters with warpfire... which deals a damage to each at the end of the round (I did not realize at the time, it just deals ONE damage, regardless of how many warping counters are on the affected fighters... still...) 

It was kind of funny watching all these fighers that would normally be fighting each other chasing after the Gargant, side-by-side trying to bring it down. 

Hexbane got thumped good at this point - but survived! 

Started getting a little crowded... when Orion blocked my path to the Gargant with Aemos and a dog... I just starting hitting who ever I could get to!

Once Aemos was in there, Orion started racking up the Glory! 

SMASH FLAMESPOOLER! 

Once the Gargant has taken damage equal to half it's health it inspires and gets MEANER... 

We probably COULD have ended it by the end of Round Two... but I think Nic had snuck just ahead of Orion for points.... 

So pretty much everyone that was NOT WINNING just started hitting other fighters to keep the Gargant from dying off, giving us all another round to get points from the Gargant - AND taking out a few fighters... 

We did finish off the Gargant in the third round.... Actually I think it finished itself off, by backing into a hazard hex and dealing itself one last point of damage 

The last few activations were spent trying to finish each other off for a few more points... but no one really had any chance of catching up to Orion at that point... Maybe Nic could have, but the Pandaemonium wasn't really positioned to strike at anyone they could potentially kill... 

Orion ended with 13 Glory points! Nic wasn't too far behind with 11 (which was pretty amazing, considering they were playing the warband for the first time without ever having looked at the cards - and playing with a Rivals deck!). I had 7... and Amanda only scored 4!? She just could not get fighters positioned to shoot and the few times she attack, she just missed (also she was playing with a Warband she'd never played before and their rivals deck that she'd never even looked at - and there weren't a lot of Power Cards that were particularly helpful - most were for positioning to get the warband onto Objectives and help them hold them - which are useless in this scenario)! 

It was a super fun scenario to play, though!! Definitely looking forward to trying it again. I really want to get my Gen-u-ine Games Workshop Chaos Gargant finished up and take it out to the Warhammer Store to play on a Friday - as I think it would be a fun one to play as a four-player game there! 

Warhammer Underworlds - Tuesday at The Den

I've been wanting to play some MORE Warhammer Underworlds - and more two-player games! I love the four-player games Amanda and I play with Nic and Orion most Sundays... but it's really meant to be a two-player game and you can get away with stuff in four-player games that just won't work in a two-player game. 

Orion had been talking about getting a regular game night going at the Dragon's Den on Tuesdays again and now that the weather's nice, I really have no excuse, so we agreed to play on Tuesday night and try to make it a regular thing and get other people out to play. 

Orion was calling it Tuesday Night Nemesis at The Den... So I tried to put together a couple of Nemesis decks... 

At first I was trying to build a Nemesis deck with Skabbik's Plaguepack and Rimelocked Relics... but I just wasn't finding enough that I felt worked better than the stuff in Skabbik's Rivals Deck.... 

Then I tried putting something together with Wurmspat and the Rimewyrms Bite Rivals Deck... and was starting to feel like there was something there... possibly... but I just ran out of time and didn't get anything put together... 

Only Orion was there (to play Warhammer Underworlds) when I arrived. So we set up and started a game. 

There were other people there playing games... like a LOT of other people. There were about 30 people playing games in the back room of the den - most were paired off playing some sort of Collectible Card Game... Maybe Yu-Gi-Oh!? Or Lorcana...? I have no idea. Pretyy sure it wasn't Magic: The Gathering...?  All I know was IT WAS LOUD and I only heard about one in every four words that was said to me that night and my brain tried to autocomplete the rest... but mostly there was a lot of nodding and smiling and not having a CLUE what people were saying!? 

Really hoped it wasn't like that EVERY Tuesday. I mean, I am glad there is a very vibrant community of... whatever it was being played there... because hopefully that means there are a lot of people buying those games still and it will keep the Dragon's Den in business! But wow... I hope it was a special even and not just regular league night... 

Orion played the Crimson Court and I had Skabbik's Plaguepack. 

It was a short and brutal game. In the first round they killed half my warband.

Though I did manage to cornder and take out Prince Duvall before the slaughter began in earnest. 

Unfortunately this was a HIGE mistake on my part... should have just ingnored him and focused on my OWN objectives... Chasing after him meant taking my own rats too far from the objective tokens they NEEDED to get to, to score my objective cards and inspire my warband...

I will partly blame the noise and not being able to concentrate enough to read the cards or formulate a plan with them... 

By the end of the second round, only Skabbik was left. 

At the beginning of the Third round I ran him deep into enemy territory where, hopefully most of them wouldn't be able to reach Skabbik... Alas, only ONE of them needed to reach poor Skabbik... and my leader was taken out with their first activation in round three... 

Yikes... Orion won that game 14-4. 

Dan and Sean had showed up and started playing a game and Orion and I waited on them to finish up to switch things up.

For the second game I played against Sean, which was really fun! I've been hoping to meet him for a while and play games (he is friends with Orion and I'd heard a lot bout their games!) 

Sean was playing with Ironsoul's Condemnors, so I thought I'd pull out Magore's Fiends - because I'd brought it along... I figured it couldn't be too hard to play... charge and hit and kill things... 

It turned out we were BOTH playing with a Nemesis deck built around the Tooth and Claw Rivals deck. So we'd BOTH just be ignoring objectives and trying to kill each other! 

The only problem was I'd very quickly put the deck together for Amanda to play a month or so ago and hadn't really looked at it since... and it wasn't just as easy and "there they are, go get them!" ... and Sean knew what he was doing with his deck... 

He killed Magore in the first activation... and it went downhill from there...

I think I took out ONE of his Stormcast...? In the end he won 19-4.

Still, fun guy to play with. Really hope I can get in some more games with him! 

After I got home I tried again to put together a Nemesis deck and...I THINK I got one sorted out with Skabbik and Paths of Prophecy... I don't know... not sure how it will work out if I'm playing against something like Orion's Crimson Court and they just murder half my warband each round...!? I'll give it a shot... 

(though, right now, I'm more interested in playing with Zondara's Gravebreakers, which I finished painting the very next day!) 

Tuesdays may NOT become a regular thing at the Den, however, as Orion is now playing D&D every Tuesday... We've talked about maybe Mondays... but the Den isn't open late on Mondays, so... we'll have to figure something out!? 

Warhammer Underworlds - Crimson Court (B)eats EVERYTHING!?

 Tuesday evening Orion came over for a few one-on-one games of Warhammer Underworlds! We ended up getting in THREE games! 

GAME ONE 

Crimson Court vs Blackpowder's Buccaneers

Because I am a masochist, apparently, and feel like I need to play all the warbands a few times to get a sense of whether they're ever going to be good (because the THREE PREVIOUS BEATDOWNS were apparently not enough!?) I rolled out with Blackpowder's Buccaneers...

(Okay, technically I didn't lose all three of those previous games... I only lost one... but I do also have to acknowledge that the ONLY reason I won the first two was a clever combination of extreme luck with cards draws and insane luck with dice rolls AND Amanda not really knowing how to play the Dread Pageant for the first few matches...)

All set up for Game One... I think Orion won all three rolls for board placement and had me go first each time. This time I chose The Stricken Swamp board and then Orion took The Iceswirl Maw and set them up with long edges adjoining. 

Straight off, Gorath swooped into my territory and smashed poor little Peggz... 

Kagey ran off into enemy territory, along with Mange the monkey, and, I think successfully pinged Prince Duvall for one damage and scored a swag token (which later allowed Blackpowder to fire his Gunderbuss TWICE in the first round, scoring me one Glory... and also inspiring him) 

Prince Duvall killed the little monkey and before getting to inspire, Blackpowder was attacked by Vellas and then Ennias... 

At the beginning of Round Two Blackpowder was inspired, for what it was worth...

But was quickly mobbed by the vampires and taken down. He went down swinging... but, like, swinging and missing... Maybe it's NOT just Amanda... maybe it's ANYONE that plays me... I'd roll three successes, Orion rolled a single crit... I'd roll a Crit, Orion rolled a Crit and a success, I rolled a crit and a success, Orion rolled two Crits... I just COULD! NOT! HIT! ANYTHING!?

And that left poor little Kagey, who tried to hide in the corner... 

But those vampires move fast! 

Kagey did manage to dodge Gorath's initial attack... 

But could not dodge Vellas von Faine... 

So... what now...? we spent the last two activations cycling through objective cards... I drew nothing useful... 

But Orion scored a few more... Ha! Look at that! I made her run out of her fancy acrylic token and made her start using CARDBOARD ONES.... yay...!?

I lost this one 21-4... wow... 

Am I DONE with Blackpowder yet? Hell no!! I'll probably try to figure out SOMETHING with a Nemesis deck and maybe just get rid of all the cards having to do with Swag and the Gunderbuss and just focus on the maneuverability they have with the monkey and birbs reactions and Blackpowders GREAT BIG CUTLASS!? 

Honestly, sometimes I feel a little like Bruce McCulloch in that Kids in the Hall sketch where he picks a fight and just won't stop... 

GAME TWO

Crimson Court vs Ephilim's Pandaemonium

I thought I'd try something different in Game Two and pulled out Ephilim's Pandaemonium, which I'd just finished painting the day before... They can't be that bad... the tabled the Thricefold Discord in teh second round when I played against them! Mind you, my opponent had not only read their cards beforehand, had played with them before and had a Nemesis deck built around them... I had done none of these things, so.... 

Again I lost the board set up roll and took Frost-wracked Ruins from the Deathgorge Core Box. Orion took The Seamsplit Folly from Wyrdhollow... 

Prince Duvall killed Apo'Trax on the first activation. I had a spell that could bring back one of my Changers (the little daemon friends are all called "Changers")... which I actually successfully cast and brought right back... only for Ennais to swoop in and kill again in the very next activation... Those Glory were enought to equip Gorath with... enough upgrades to swoop in a kill Ephilim... which kind of destroyed any chance of this not being at total disaster... 

Flame spooler hit Ennais with his magic flame attack, which spilled over onto Price Duvall - which was enough to take him out at the beginning of Round Two (as he had been bitten by Apo'Trax!) 

Ennais was also taken out, largely with Damage from Flamespooler. Spawnmaw managed to CHOMP Gorath... but, again, less than half of my attacks succeeded because ALL THE CRITS?!

And they were totally wiped out by the beginning of the Third Round.

Aye-yi-yi.... I lost this one 22-6... not sure if that better...? 

GAME THREE

Crimson Court vs Magore's Fiends

I decided maybe I needed something... EASIER to play... It doesn't get much easier than the CHARGE! KILL! tactics of Magore's Fiends!? And Amanda had put together a Nemesis deck for them with Tooth and Claw, so.... 

It played fast and furious - I didn't even remember to take a picture until part way through the first round, by which time ALL of the fighters were engaged in a bit brawl in the middle of the battlefield! 

The Blood Warriors took down Vellas, but lost Ghartok. They took down Gorath, but then lost Magore... Riptooth shredded Ennias.. 

And that left Prince Duvall facing Zharkus the Bloodsighted and Riptooth... But Zharkus couldn't hit anything... 

And Prince Duvall finished him off and successfully dodged teh last of Riptooth's attacks... 

Ah well... I didn't lose this one quite as badly. Orion only doubled my Glory total at 14-7. So, there's that... 

Yeah... I don't know what to DO about these vampires... they are NASTY!? I thought Hexbane's Hunters were bad!? But these guys just start scoring objectives on the first turn and just keep scoring them all throughout the game... and then equip with so many crazy upgrades which make them simultaneously way deadlier and also way harder to kill!? 

I don't hear about them dominating the competitive scene... (one player did make it to the finals at the Las Vegas Open this year with them, I think... but didn't win!?)  So there must be some way to beat them. Roll better dice, I guess!?