Warhammer Underworlds

[Jye Nicolson]

Poor Mollog, what did he ever do to deserve that?

...oh right, all those horrible things.

It's a more subtle change than it appears because you rarely get to pull off the second charge (it's usually a late round 2 thing) but having said that removing the chance for it will put pressure on the Mollog player and cut down on some cute options (like charging through a lethal hex to inspire and then charge again).

You'll still want to limit what you leave within two hexes of him.

[The Other Dave]

Oh, wait, there is an updated FAR list: https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp- ... O4NBG8.pdf

It just didn't populate through to the Championship document for some reason.

Wow, lots of changes, actually, including basically making the various Arena Mortis packages off-limits for organized play. Ferocious Resistance is gone too, which is not at all surprising and takes Mollog and Hrothgorn down a peg or two. The Krushas get another restricted in-faction card too, which helps them. Basically a whole lot of cards that seemed to get play in basically every deck are now on the list, which is the usual pattern - Cover Ground, Show of Force, Proud Runner, et cetera. A lot of my decks are going to need some rejiggering, which is actually a fun little frisson the FAR always brings.

[Jye Nicolson]

I am *really* glad I got the Mollog out of my system and moved on to Kainan before this update

That's a lot of FAR cards added, though that's probably just an artifact of having to do an entire season at once. It will certainly shake up my Kainan deck, and provoke some tougher choices whenever I pivot off him to another team.

[Jye Nicolson]

We had a bunch of games out at Plamojuku yesterday*, and I continue to be really happy with Kainan and co. I feel like I have lots of viable options for dealing with problems and while I'm exposed to risk from the fragility of my tiny little dudes you can present opportunity costs to your opponent for whatever they decide to go after.

The one game I did lose was to Dave's vampires. I think you'd have to rate the Bonereapers at a higher tier than the vampires, especially since the latter are much harder to drive, but that doesn't mean there's no danger. And with Dave having a really good grasp of the team already that danger is very much present.

I played a bit aggressive and ran my Morteks up together into his face with a "well he can't kill them all" attitude. Dear reader, he could absolutely kill them all



* We played in the air conditioned shipping container outside that they added for some combination of Corona and event space reasons; this worked out really well because the shop looked pretty crowded with the Gunpla event they had on, whereas we had plenty of room!

[The Other Dave]

Yeah, I've been quite pleased with how the vampires are working out for me. 3-0 for the day, but one was against a new player so doesn't really count (and it was probably the closest game of the three as well). I've got them set up as a hybrid control / passive hunger build, and when the rolls go off and you use magic to put a move token on Morgok and a net to put a charge token on the other orc who's still alive, suddenly you sort of find that you're free to do whatever the heck you want.

I also embarked on my "play at least one game with all 36 warbands, in release order" project, and used Steelhearts' and the Reavers in a couple 3-player games, where the Reavers shine and the stormcast... don't*. I got tabled in both games, but still managed to score 20 glory with Garrek's thanks to "Khorne Cares Not"-style shenanigans. Next Underworlds day Ironskull's Boys and the Sepulchral Guard will be up, who should both be pretty challenging as well. (It is that chance I've been waiting for to get elbows-deep in the Arena Mortis cards, at least.)

*My attacks all being defended with crits in that game didn't help much either!

[The Other Dave]

Just when I thought I wouldn’t have to buy any new stuff for a bit, they announce a revamp of Arena Mortis!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... sal-cards/

Which is fine, apparently they want it to be an official play mode, and the old AM will cycle out with Beastgrave, and had, you might say, a few balance issues. It’s always nice to get new cards, and we’ve seen hazard cards in Dreadfane, and they’re fun to use from time to time. Plus, as they’ll actually have a couple extra play modes (“tag team elimination and 4-6 player team games”) there’s a bit more value added than the original AM.

To be honest, even though we do a lot of multiplayer games up at plamojuku, AM never caught on because have to build a bespoke deck for it, which isn’t easy on the fly. If the team games in particular work with regular championship decks, it’d be an interesting addition.

[The Other Dave]

Also! I continued my "play every warband in release order" project up at plamojuku today, bringing the Sepulchral Guard (with a mostly cheeky "every Arena Mortis card that mentions Raise tokens" deck) and Ironskull's Boyz (with the usual strategy of trying to get Gurzag as powered up as possible and going to town).

I took the Guard out first against Jye's Kainan's Reapers, and even looking past the fun-factor of my deck and the seriousness-factor of his it just wasn't funny how terrible the skeletons' stats are. (They have shields! Why are they dodge!) Even giving that you can bring them back, compared to what ought to be a pretty similar warband ("lots of skeletons"), their stats are just hot garbage, and they struggle to do much of anything. Jye later borrowed them to use against Magore's, and it looked like they did better.

The orcs did marginally better, getting 6 points and tabled in a 3-way game against the Reapers and Ochiai-san's Thorns of the Briar Queen - Jye was canny enough to take Gurzag out quickly, and that pretty much ends it for Ironskull's. Then I took them against Magore's, got Gurzag's pain train up and running, and tabled them turn 2 - but still, I had like 12 glory, which is fantastic for a Shadespire match but just wouldn't have cut it against the scoring power of a Beastgrave of Direchasm warband. Still, I think the orcs might still have "playing for fun" legs in a modern meta, although they'll always be fighting an uphill battle against the terribly un-orcy srubbiness of their scrubs.

Next month will be the Chosen Axes and the Farstriders, neither of whom I have ever played or really thought about before, so that should be fun!

[Jye Nicolson]

Thank you for lending me the skeletons - I wanted a closer game for Kawamura-san since he'd forgotten his beloved wolf riders and his Magore deck doesn't have the same level of grunt. I still found it a struggle (like I said at the time) due to the action economy but I was able to score a handful of things and pull ahead.

The Orks do seem more viable but they have the struggle of comparison to the two other very very good Ork teams. As well as my Bonereapers performed yesterday Ochiai-san's Brutes just took them apart!

[The Other Dave]

New season announced (so we'll probably get it November / December), and as expected one of the warbands in the box will be Kruleboys:



So there's like a 98% chance the other will be Stormcast.

The goblin looks OK, silly hat, he probably sticks a ball and chain on you and gives you a move token or whatever, that's all good. I just came here to report that the warband name, Da Kunnin' Krew, may be the single lowest-effort warband name in the game to date.

[me_in_japan]

While I'm pleased to see season 5 confirmed, and have no particular issues with kruleboyz, I'm still processing season 4. I literally havent even opened a box yet, and we're onto season 5? I dunno how I feel about that...