Warhammer Underworlds: Rivals Event

Whoops! It's been a week since the Warhammer Underworlds Rivals Event at the Warhammer Store in Saskatoon! (weirdly, it FEELS like it was even longer ago!?) 

We kind of slept in Sunday morning and had less than an hour to get ready and out the door... and I STILL hadn't even decided what Warband to take!? I'm not sure Amanda was entirely settled... but was probably leaning towards the Dread Pageant, if I didn't take them. I had started thinking I should start playing them more (as I've picked up a Hedonites of Slaanesh Vanguard box and will be playing them in Age of Sigmar, to start, at least). But in the end I gave up on the idea of playing the Kharadron of Thundrik's Profiteers and went with Skabbik's Plaguepack! 

We did NOT get out the door within the hour and were running quite late. I sent a note to let them know we were both on our way and if they wanted to start without us, Amanda and I could play in the first round against each other. 

In the end they WAITED for us. Only seven showed up, and John decided not to play and that one person would get a bye each round. In that first round it was Amanda!?

Initially it was discussed that we would start at 1pm. There would be two rounds from 1-2 and 2-3pm, lunch break from 3-3:30, and two more rounds from 3:30 until 5:30... it wasn't until we were starting the third round after the break that I found out the plan had been changed to just THREE rounds!? 

Ah well... 

ROUND ONE

In the first round I played Sean. He hadn't really decided what to play either and had brought a few options!?

As we were setting up he decided to play Headkrakka's Madmob. I've not played them, nor seen them play before, but I'd heard they are pretty nasty. 

Indeed, they were pretty nasty! They just killed all the rats... 

Well, ALMOST all the rats - at the end of the game Itchitt was still alive!

Sean won the game 20-4

Also in the second round Dray was playing Nic and Orion was playing Jared. 

Amanda started with a bye and kind of just had to hang around and watch the games for the first bit. 

Nic won their first game (11-4) and Orion lost her first game (16-14)!!

ROUND TWO

For the second round the other two tables swapped...

Orion's Headsman's Curse played Dray's Thorns of the Briar Queen. 

Nic's Cyreni's Razors face Jared's Draper's Wraithcreepers. 

Idoneth and Creepers. 

Amanda played Sean, and I had the bye in the second round. 

Teh Dread Pageant fighting Headkrakka's Madmob. 

Somehow Hadzu not only survived to the end... but was the ONLY one of the Dread Pageant that survived to the end... AND they WON!? (12-11?! SO CLOSE!?) 

Orion won her second game and Nic lost theirs... 

Amanda and I wandered down the way to try out a Burrito place we'd never been to before... and it was pretty okay! 

ROUND THREE

With one loss and one win each (because a Bye apparently counted as a win for me!? I face Orion next and her Headsman's Curse 

Somehow I took a lot more pictures of this game... 

But it's been a week now, so I don't really remember what happened in each round... 

Rats got murdered... 

Some of the undead got smashed apart... 

Only to return in the next round!?

Once again Itchitt was the last rat standing. 

I totally lost again... but not by quite as much as my first game!? only 14-8 - wasn't even doubled, let along quintupled!? 

In the final round Amanda faced Jared for the trophy, but lost.... 

Jared, winner of Saskatoon's first Warhammer Underworlds tournament, with his "Shadeglass" trophy.

Everyone went home with a BUNCH of swag!? 

I got a bit more becuase I had the best painted warband... 

Now ALMOST have a full set of acrylic tokens. 

Prizes for best painted! Yay! 

It was a pretty fun day. I was a little bit disappointed I only got to play two games (instead of the four I was initially expecting to play...). But I got in a bike ride on a nice day and got to spend the afternoon hanging out with Amanda and played a couple games against some fabulous humans... so I can't complain too much!?

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...!?