Tons of games of Underworlds

  I spent a great deal of time painting over the last month-and-a-half trying to get the Underworlds warbands painting in time for my buddy to play with painted models.  I didn't get to put in the work on Magore's Fiends like I would have preferred (painfully slow), but they're done and still look good on the tabletop.  I can always go back later.

  My mission was complete.  My buddy came down and we played a bunch of games.  Let me quickly cover them below, but I was proud that every model we used was painted.  The visual appeal, even in a board game, can be very rewarding...

Game 1
  My buddy played the Chosen Axes against my Stormsire's Cursebreakers.

  He built his deck to increase wounds, get inspired and gain glory points quickly for holding objectives, and healing all the time.  My Stormcast are typically very dangerous, thumping out skeletons, ghosts, and even Blood Warriors with confidence.

  It did not go well, as the lightning warriors found that they couldn't do damage fast enough to do any damage.  They luckily sacrificed themselves to keep the dwarves out of their zone.  This gave them the game-winning glory points at the end, but it felt hollow.


Game 2
  We still had to find the best 2-of-3, so we played the same warbands.  This time, the boards were set very diagonal with only four hexes to limit interactions.  In addition, most of the newly-named "Feature Hexes" (objective markers) in the dwarven area, by strategy of my buddy.

  This time was so much worse.  Everything that the Stormcast tried to do meant nothing as the Chosen Axes just racked up the glory points and easily defeated any of the gold boys that came near.  With upgrades and wounds to spare, it became a losing battle.  And none of the objective cards really helped, so the Cursebreakers had to settle for very few points and be outgained by more than one.

Game 3
  Two games down, each side with a win, and now it was time to get the third.  Having won the board phase, I set it up to be a long setup with as many obstacles to the dwarves as possible.  The Stormcast have upgrades to go through blocked and lethal hexes, so it wouldn't hurt them.

  Unfortunately, none of that mattered.  The distances were so great and the cowardice of each side being too strong meant that there was very little damage done.  It was not an exciting game and resulted in no scoring at all for the Cursebreakers.  The Axes got points just by standing on objectives.  I had to concede the game because there was nothing, and I mean nothing that the Stormcast could do to score points, cause damage, or even present a threat.

  In all three games, the dwarves scored 6 or 7 glory points.  They were very consistent in scoring points, regardless of the other side.  The Stormcast, on the other hand, were foiled in every legitimate way.  With speed-based ploys and upgrades, the Chosen Axes shared the same speed, defense, and offensive power.  But they are based on claiming objectives, so they score easily and quickly which allows them to upgrade and heal.  I found myself COMPLETELY outclassed.  It was horrific and I HATE those dwarves!  Credit to my buddy for building that deck- especially considering he doesn't play unless he comes cross-country to visit me!  Wow.  Victory to the Chosen Axes.

Game 4
  My buddy wanted to use Magore's Fiends and I chose to use Ylthari's Guardians.

  His deck was built around causing damage.  It wasn't anything terribly advanced and included upgrades that increased damage, so it was pretty obvious.  I can't really remember anything about his deck that was especially exciting- I'm sure it was pretty good.  But playing the trees requires a bit of focus and it was already late at night.

  My buddy was worried about my warband's speed.  I assured him that it was pretty much the same as him, that is until they're inspired.  And they get inspired by healing.  And they get reactions with crits on defense and attacks.  And they get movement shenanigans to bounce about the board.  It was frustrating for his Fiends and he got to feel a bit like I was feeling last series.  The Guardians scored a bunch of points and denied the Fiends scoring any themselves.  My buddy questioned his deck.

Game 5
  This happened a couple days later, and had to be the chance to settle the best-of-3 for the Fiends and Guardians.

  This time, the board was placed in a diagonal way again and even had an objective in no-man's land.  That was going to be advantageous to my both forces...  This was the same problem as the last game, except that all of Magore's Fiends focused on the defensive-based tough tree and took him out.  Without that unbreakable defense pumping out wounds and defying all damage that comes his way, the Guardians were suddenly vulnerable.  In this case, they used their unique gambits to destroy objectives and maneuver to deny the Blood Warriors their glory points.  The frustration was unbelievable and resulted in a scant victory for the trees.

  By this point, it was obvious that Ylthari's Guardians are a very powerful force, if played correctly.  I still fear for warbands that are able to shift the advantages to their side.  My buddy believes that his Magore's Fiends deck is terrible.  He even figured out that he was using the Khorne-dog wrong- putting him out in front and presenting him as an easy target.

Game 6
  My wife had built a pretty good deck for her ghosts and wanted to give it a run, so she brought the Thorns of the Briar Queen and my buddy went with the Chosen Axes (if I remember correctly- I was studying and taking a quiz, so I was a bit distracted).

  I remember hearing my wife cackle a number of times and my buddy exclaim how crazy it was.  The ghosts simply 'pushed' their way to surround the dwarves, get inspired, and then get glory points in nutsy ways.  The Thorns are extremely fast!  With a couple of healing powers and extra wounds, they attacked like a swarm and forced the dwarves to react in a non-beneficial way.  My buddy didn't like it and the ghosts easily won.  Like, easily.  I'm rather worried to play my wife now.

Game 7
  My son challenged my buddy to a game a day later.  My son used his Magore's Fiends against my buddy's Chosen Axes.  My son was already very worried, having heard my own experiences.

  Funny enough, my son still lost but he did a much better job with his deck than me against those dwarves.  He caused damage, had the speed to get in and lay down some smack before having to take the return attacks.  With his objectives, my son still scored some glory points and made a good showing of himself.  But he was not happy with his deck and my son instantly thought about revamping his deck.

Game 8
  It was time for the heavyweight matchup, taking place on his last night in town.  My buddy brought his Chosen Axes and I brought Ylthari's Guardians. 

  This game was very interesting because the trees were too afraid of the dwarves to directly engage.  But the objective cards cooperated and it allowed for the glory points to stack up.  Better, the board setup was advantageous and allowed the trees to use blocked hexes to their advantage.  The Chosen Axes were able to kill a couple of the trees and be generally frustrating, but it wasn't anything near effective and they couldn't score enough points to win.

Game 9
  Best-of-3.  Unfortunately this was a foregone conclusion.  From the board phase all the way through the beginning of round 2, everything was stacked against the Chosen Axes.  Their cards did not come up right and the objectives that they needed were either too far away or contested already.  To make matters worse, the trees simply ran as far from the dwarves as possible and taunted them.  Destroying objective markers and keeping everyone at arm's length (very Eldar-like tactics) made Ylthari's Guardians unbeatable.  With frustration oozing, my buddy had to concede.

  All in all, we found that his Chosen Axes deck was ridiculous and very well designed.  Impressively and enough to rekindle my hatred of dwarves (I've always been partial to the elves, of course).  Unfortunately, it's weakness is that it didn't have the ability to score enough points.  Getting up to six or seven wasn't really going to achieve a alot of victories for the dwarves.

  We also found that Ylthari's Guardians are very capable of scoring tons of points and, when used correctly, can frustrate opponents past even resignation.  They seem to be 'tricksy' in a way that's very dependent on dice rolls and extremely stressful for both the player and the opponent.  If crits come up, it's going to be a bad to for the opponent.  If they are rare, the trees are going to find themselves outclassed.

   It was a packed weekend of gaming.  I'm very proud to have finished painting the models in time and gave my buddy that experience.  Better, I'm very happy that he actually got to play the game!  It's also possible that he can come down later this year, with newly designed decks in hand and a mission to beat me.  I'll be happy to meet that challenge, hopefully with a Stormcast deck that can do anything...

  As always, Happy Gaming!

Blood for the Underworlds!

  I painted something fast!

  In a previous post, I noted that a buddy was coming to town and wanted to play some Underworlds.  So I frantically painted up the Chosen Axes dwarf warband that he was preparing to use.  But then we talked again and it turns out that he's also bringing a deck for Magore's Fiends...

  Darnit.  That means more painting.  So I finished up the trees from the last post and jumped right into this warband.  The good thing is that my son also likes to play this band and has been asking to paint them for some time.  I, being the perfectionist that I am, kept them to myself with a grand vision on how I wanted them to look.  But my buddy has thrown my timing off (by actually establishing a reason and a time-frame).  Now I had two people to stop procrastinating for.

  This warband was painted in the span of two days, between various other responsibilities.  I thought about taking pictures as I moved through the progress, but I was too lazy to pull out the digital camera (I miss my phone camera so much right now) and it didn't really matter.  With such a short turnaround required, I didn't exactly put my best effort forward.

  Nonetheless, they came out pretty striking and I'm happy with where the models are at.  A little bit of work on the reds and I think I can have these models at a display quality in no time!  But for now, they're game quality and just in time...

Magore's Fiends

  The pictures simply don't do these models justice AND show off all my corner-cutting techniques!  Oh well, I'm still relearning this camera.  The models just scream aggression and glory and definitely cut imposing figures across the gameboard.  In game, they are just as scary.  They aren't slow, have good defense, hit like a ton of bricks, and can be upgraded very quickly.  It takes some cunning to defeat these brutes and Magore's Fiends is definitely one of the bands we don't like to see very often.  

  Blood for the Blood God!   

Happy Gaming!

The Slayers roam the Underworlds

  It's been a while since I posted anything about Shadespire and I figured it was about time.  In fact, you'll see another one next post!  But I wanted to get to this one first since there's a story behind it. 

  I have a good buddy coming down to visit at the end of this month.  This guy got into the hobby with me at the same time (we were opponents for much of our developmental years) and he even ran a game store for a little while.  Our love of miniatures gaming goes back all the way to my beginning, and it's kept going (despite his having no time or opponents to play where he lives now).  His visit is for other reasons, but we also plan to get his dice-rolling and mini-pushing muscles back to work. 

  When I was up to visit him many moons ago, I bought the Shadespire box set from his LGS.  We opened it up and checked out the models and it was awesome!  Months passed before we could get together again and we pulled that game back out to give it a go.  He LOVED it!  The models were fantastic, the rules were simple, and the gameplay didn't take entire weekends to enjoy.  With that, he returned home to pick up a bunch of the warbands himself. 

  Knowing that he was coming down to visit soon, he called me and asked if he could crash on my couch and also for advice on how to build a good Fireslayer deck for Shadespire.  Dammit!  I helped him with some ideas (this is a game I'm not actually bad at, unlike most of our other games) and then pulled out my models with the plan to get them painted.  He'll have the deck, but he won't travel with models for obvious reasons...If he reads this (and I doubt that he does), the surprise will be ruined.  But I am hoping to surprise him with a painted warband to use when he gets here. 


The Chosen Axes

   This warband's strength is in defense.  They gain glory points by standing on objectives and they become tougher when doing so.  They get 'inspired' by defending their treasure horde (in the form of objectives) and hit really hard just when you think they'll do nothing but stand there.  They can be vicious if played right. 

  

  Their weaknesses are in speed and requiring so many ploys and upgrades to really become effective.  Poor placement of the boards and objective markers can make their plight much more difficult, and faster bands like Skaven and Reavers can simply outrun them.  But some proper planning and powerful ploys can even the field quite easily.  

  The models are awesome!  They are wearing very little in terms of clothing and armor, but the detail in their weapons and helms is insane!  Better yet, I enjoy painting flesh (one of my hobby strengths) and these models are rife with it.  I didn't want to paint them to look like everyone else's slayers, and I also wanted these to be usable in other fantasy games (like D&D) since I don't have many dwarfs left in my collection.  So I chose a more 'realistic' color scheme.  

  My son has already used these dwarfs to great effect, so I'm curious to see how my buddy's deck works.  Hopefully he doesn't beat us too badly (and vice-versa)...  Let me know what you think and, as always- 

Happy Hobbying!

More Color in the Underworlds!

   As promised in my last hobby post, I would get some more of the Underworlds: Shadespire models painted and then post some pics.  After a couple of later nights (totally due to procrastination), I finally finished the models and got to taking the pictures- even if in terrible winter-season light and on a simple phone camera.  But hey, it's done!

  This time, I finished up the Ironjaws warband.  I have to admit that I did not enjoy painting all the yellow.  Priming the models in black and then painting them on the bases may not have been the wisest approach, but the warband did come out strikingly awesome.  I tried to keep the skin dark (they are the old school Black Orcs, known for their thick, dark skin after decades of fighting), which was very hard to do with the bright armor.  Some bright, stony weapons and a dark base meant that I was really messing around with color theory on these guys.  Let me know what you think of the efforts for sure.

Ironskull's Boyz

  My wife painted her skeleton warband way back in November to give us some painted models for our trip to Warhammer Citadel.  She painted almost all of these models in the short span of a game between me and my buddy and had them completely ready by the time we went to bed.  Talk about speed!

Sepulchral Guard

My favorite one...

  Now that those are all done, it's time to get to painting some Ultramarines.  Give me a couple of weeks and I may have to dive back into the Underworlds: Shadespire models and get those Dwarves and Skaven done.  But first, some blue!!!

  Let me know what you think below and if you've been working on anything.  Happy hobbying!

There's color in the Underworld

  It's been well over a year since Games Workshop released Underworlds: Shadespire.  The wife and I have played many games and I've even gotten buddies from out-of-state to fall for it on a visit.  Unfortunately, the game is so fast that blogging about it isn't really that interesting.  Now battle reports about it, well, that's a different story.  I've tried to get a bit of blogging about the game going here, but it just didn't work.  I think much of that had to do with the fact that the models weren't painted.  

  That all leads to the next hobby resolution for the year- paint up all the Shadespire warbands.  This will eventually lead to painting all the Underworlds: Nightvault warbands as well, but I'll get to that.  One edition at a time, ya know?

  If you haven't picked up the game or tried it out yet, you may be out of luck for this first edition.  The second edition I mentioned above just adds magic to the game, but everything is still good.  Luckily, you'd be able to get the starter warbands if you wanted to start at the beginning.  That old starter kit came with a Stormcast warband, including three beastly models all armed differently, and a Blood Reavers warband of five scantily-clad berzerkers.  I promise that you'll love the game itself, but the models are all of a character-level quality and are a blast to paint.  Although I didn't put the most effort into my models that I probably should have (it is a board game, after all), the painted models make the games look absolutely fantastic!  The wife and I have found ourselves admiring the models on the board more than paying attention to the game a couple of times.  

Steelheart's Champions (Stormcast Eternals)

Garrek's Reavers (Blood Reavers)

  I use Garrek's Reavers most of the time that I play.  I've found that they can really hit hard and do some real damage to the weaker opponents and otherwise speed around and deny objectives to the opponents.  Steelheart's Champions rarely get used, but they are tanks- simply soaking damage while smashing whatever they have to and moving together to support each other.  Other warbands are used more, but I'm working on getting them painted before I show them off here.  

  If you really want to learn some tactics and see decks built for the competitive scene, check out warhammerunderworlds.com, where you can learn all about the background, get painting advice, and see what the latest 'netlists' are for the game.  Like most of the blogosphere on this topic, I can't bray enough about how awesome this game is.  And look at those models!

  Let me know what you think and if you've played Warhammer Underworlds yet.  Happy Gaming!