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: Last Game in March!

Yesterday, the last Sunday in March, Nic and Orion came over to play some more Warhammer Underworlds. 

In our first game I rolled out with my new Skabbik's Plague Pack. They had not done well in their first game against Amanda playing Elathain's Soulraid. 

Amanda was playing Elathain's Soulraid again, Nic played Cyreni's Razors, and Orion was playing the Crimson Court. 

Cyreni's starrted off the bullying of the rats by charging in with THE SQUID and killing poor Poxlix... 

Vellas charged in to attack Tammael. 

And quicly found herself surrounded by Elathain's entire warband!? 

I'd had a plan that mostly involved maneuvering and trying to score objective cards... but then Cyreni, herself, came after my warband... 

Grand Melee in the middle of the board. 

Skabbik... maneuvering and scoring objective cards. 

Cyreni made the mistake of NOT killing rats at the beginning of the next round and she was just too tempting a target for Rabidius - and if he DIDN'T do something, she'd be killing rats... so Rabidius took her out! 

but then the SQUID came for Rabidius! 

Elsewhere, Skabbik, just doing his move around the board and score points thing, hoping no one would notice! 

And maneuvering back to befoul multiple territories again at the end of round two ... AND score MORE objectives!? 

Beginning of round three, I had no more passive objective cards or need to maneuver rats around to befoul territories... so we went on the attack! 

Rikit moved up and... hit someone..? 

Gah, I missed a few opportunities for pictures... there was a BIG mess of fighters here in the middle... this is the aftermath. the rats took out Fuirann and made Count Duval afraid enough that he actually ran away! 

I ended up winning this game with 20 Glory points! This was largely because it was a multi-player game and I had a few Objective cards that scored for "X Enemy Fighter out of action AND..." and all I had to do was the "AND..." because it does not matter WHO killed the enemy fighters, just that there are that many out of action! So all I had to do was concentrate on getting my rats to the places they needed to be, and hope that not too many tried to pick on the all too easy targets that they are! There is no way I'd be able to take out that many fighters myself, AND do the other things. Those cards probably have to go... 

I'm still not super sure how to PLAY these. I read some suggestions on Reddit - where someone else asked for tips on how to play. At least one, possibly more, had suggested as using them as "Suicide Aggro" - just charging them into enemy territory to kill things, knowing they are going to die, but hopefully score enough Glory before doing so... 

I never seem to have much luck with Aggro... because it is so reliant on rolling at least average rolls... and... that doesn't seem to work out for me!?

For Game Two I switched it op and pulled out Mollog's Mob to play with the new cards from the Rivals of the Mirrored City box, I'd bought the day before. 

Orion stuck with the Crimson Court, but Amanda decided to try out the new cards for the Thorns of the Briar Queen and Nic switched things up as well and played Grashrak's Despoilers. 

Tried to move up and bonk... and missed... 

See... aggro just don't work so well for me... 

Mollog chasing down Grashrak.

Orion had split his warband and half of them savaged the Thorns of the Briar Queen. and the other half went and killed half of Grashrak's Desppoilers... 

and when there was no more of them they turned on poor little Spiteshroom!?

Chasing down Grashrak! 

Orion did AMAZING. Crimson Court ended up scoring TWENTY FIVE glory in this game. 

I like Mollog's new cards... better than the previous set, but still needs some editing. I've heard some good things about pairing it with the Voidcursed Thralls rivals deck, to make a Nemesis deck! Too many things I want to play with. I'd also like to play more with Skabbik's Plaguepack and make a Nemesis deck for them... of course, as soon as I'm done the other new warbands, I'm going to want to play with THEM!?!?

Maybe I'll just be playing a new warband each week until I'm done them all in September... and THEN I'll start picking a few to try and learn to play really well!? 

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!?