Warhammer Underworlds: My First Deck

Should a scholar of High Azyr 
or war leader of the Stormcast Eternals 
make mention of Beastgrave, 
it is typically the mountain alone to which they refer...

- Games Workshop


Hello hello one and all!

Welcome back to The Art of Caesura, my happy blog of life and hobbies in the south west of Ireland. I felt the need to re-frame it there because in recent weeks, I have totally fallen down the Zombicide: Green Horde rabbit hole (or Abominabunny hole). It is hard to believe that 10 out of the past 11 weeks have been devoted to this great game. I actually do still have a few more Zombicide: Green Horde minis that I'm currently working on, but I'll save those. I do think it's time to move on from the Green Horde for a little while.

This is a bit of a different post. Long-time readers will know me mainly as a painter and hobbiest and not really a tabletop gamer (though not for lack of desire). But this post (which I originally wrote back in March!) is something a bit different...

One of my goals for this year is to play a game against someone I didn't previously know. I decided to set my sights on Warhammer Underworlds and today I'm going to talk about my first deck. I thought it might be interesting to share the thought process of a total noob getting into the game. 


How I Got Started in Warhammer Underworlds:

I decided that it would be a fun exercise to make my first list independently, without looking for tips from "netlists". To learn the game, I first read the Beastgrave Rulebook, watched the "How to Play" video, and then bought Warhammer Underworlds Online (still in Early Access at time of writing) the video game does not yet have Thundrik's Profiteers (my chosen warband), but gave me a better idea of the core mechanics. My final preparation before starting my list was to read the two excellent articles on Goonhammer with general tips for beginner's list-building here and here.

So I guess I'd say, that while I've never played before, I've done a bit of my homework and will pitch this post at those who are a bit familiar with the game. 

One last bit of preamble is that I am only using cards from warbands that I already have (I had previously bought the ones that interested me from a painting perspective). So I'll be drawing from: The Nightvault Starter, Mollog's Mob, Zarbag's Gits, Thundrik's Profiteers, and the Beastgrave Starter. Also, obviously none of the pictures are mine, they are all from Games Workshop's deck-builder. 


Thinking About My List:

So, as Raf from Goonhammer recommended, I started by looking at my dudes, and assessing their strengths (shooting) and weaknesses (movement). I also took their inspire condition into consideration (they inspire when they gain glory). 

With these characteristics in mind, I brainstormed the kind of objectives that would suit. It would be good to have objectives that favour shooting, and surge objectives would be especially useful because they would help me to inspire my dudes quicker. Initially, I had a few objectives-based...objectives, but then figured that mobility (which may be required to get to those objectives) is not my band's strong suit. 

Objective Deck

I began with my objective cards - and in particular those specific to Thundrik's warband. To this end I started with Headshot (which ticked all the boxes: a score immediately involving normal shooting), next I picked Stake a Claim (it's like quicker, less lucrative Denial) which would take advantage of my low movement and give quicker glory to inspire my guys. I picked Live by the Code, because I figured it's probably better not to have to discard objective cards anyway. The last two objectives that I picked from Thundrik's deck may have seemed obvious, but I initially felt they might be too situational: Focus Fire (would it be prudent use of activations to use 3 of them on shooting 1 enemy?) but once I'd picked this, Seeking Advancement made sense to take too. Plus they're both "Score Immediately". 

With my warband-specific objectives chosen, I looked to universal objectives to bump my deck up to the required 12 cards. Like Headshot, Death from Afar was an obvious inclusion. Digging Deep seemed easy enough, because many (the maximum of six, I believe) of my objectives are surges, and I would hope to be playing many upgrades with this glory. With the (hopefully many) quick objectives being scored, I included Building Momentum, and Solid Gains culminating in Press the Advantage - the three of which, though requiring careful timing, seem to synergise. The last two objective cards I included, are Denial (for the same reason as Stake a Claim), and then the one I'm least certain about: Master of Terrain. My reason for Master of Terrain (which may seem a bit out of place at first) is that Thundrik can make lethal hexes each turn, and (as he is required to inspire all of my other fighters) he will likely be a high priority target for my opponent. While I would ideally like to keep him out of combat, I have a few ploys planned to protect him if he is targeted, so this card plays into that school of though. 

Power Deck

So with the objectives picked came the much more daunting task of choosing Power Cards (ploys and upgrades). I started by discarding all the spell cards (no wizards for dwarves!) and also discarding all Power Cards that enhanced attacks with range 1 or 2 (these would not be playing to my strengths). I approached choosing Power Cards with my core concepts firmly in mind: I'm not aiming to get to objectives - so am not going to focus too much on augmenting mobility; I want to enhance shooting wherever possible; and I really need to keep Thundrik alive at all costs so that he can inspire the rest of his lads. 

Ploys

I started with ploys to enhance shooting: Aetheric Augmentation, Stand and Shoot, and Determined Effort. 

Next, I picked some ploys that would hopefully protect Thundrik: Transfixing Stare and Toxic Gases would hopefully stop enemies from getting to him, or soften them up a little if they do. Finally in this vein, I picked Protect the Boss, though I might review this one because my dudes aren't really equipped for melee. 

For its utility, I had to pick Quiet Contemplation - being able to swap objectives or draw a power card mid-round without wasting an activation seemed pretty good! 

My final ploy, Seek the Skyvessel, involves movement shenanigans, which doesn't totally fit my goals, and to be truthful it is a relic of the first iteration of this deck that I wrote. I originally included Supremacy and Search the City in my objective deck to make the warband a bit more flex (and also give some higher scoring objectives) and at that stage I also had Unyielding as a ploy to make it harder to shift my fighters from objectives. When I removed those two objectives, I also removed Unyielding, but kept Seek the Skyvessel because most of my guys are super slow. This is something I'll have to reassess after I've had a chance to play a few games. 

Upgrades

Upgrades were really difficult to pick as well. Because this deck is meant to generate glory quickly, I wasn't too concerned about having more upgrades than ploys. Again, I tried to focus on: shooting, protect Thundrik, and a bit of utility with some cards that I would bring in if I decide to bring back some objective holding. 

For shooting I have: Empowered Aethershot - which, combined with Rapid Reload, looks amazing! Likewise, Fighter's Ferocity looks useful, and synergises with my Headshot objective. Ironhail will be earning his aether-gold! Paymaster will help these attacks be more accurate, and I have other cards incentivising fighters to be beside Thundrik. Finally, Challenge Seeker will see a lot of use, because many enemies will have a higher wound value than my warband (though I will have to check if this refers to their unmodified (pre-inspired) wound value). 

Next, I need to keep Thundrik and the boys alive long enough to inspire the gang and accomplish my objectives; to this end, I brought about as many "+1 wounds" cards as I could find: Great Fortitude, Tome of Vitality, and Ancestral Fortitude. Once the guys are all 'roided up with extra wound(s) having a way to heal would be useful, enter Tome of Healing - it's a bonus that it works for either the upgraded fighter or an adjacent one, because I have other cards that encourage fighters to be beside Thundrik.  I have included Magmalt Draught to protect Thundrik if he does get clobbered. I currently have Reinforced Armour for this purpose as well, but I'll have to see how common Damage 1 attacks are as its use might be too limited. 

The last two cards I'd consider if I re-include Supremacy and Search the City are Faneway Crystal and Blessing of Hydragos - because as I've said before, my little dwarves ain't fast!

Forsaken and Restricted

The last thing I did, once I'd constructed my deck, was to check the Banned and Restricted list to make sure my deck was actually "legal" and hallelujah, it is!


Room for Improvement

As I mentioned earlier, I'll have to reassess my exclusion of Supremacy / Search the City, because I do need some higher scoring potential. I should also probably max out my ploys (to 10) because these seem likely basically free cards to play, so why not? That will require me to edit down my upgrades deck (Reinforced Armour) a little so my combined power deck isn't too unwieldy. 

***

When I wrote this list (and post) - in mid-March - I had signed up for a beginners tournament a couple hours away to throwdown my first Underworld dice. Unfortunately (though correctly) this was cancelled due to COVID-19. So hopefully I'll get a chance later in the year to complete my hobby goal of gaming against a stranger. 

I'm sure once I start actually playing Warhammer Underworlds, I will realize that I have made some pretty obvious noob errors with this deck, but it will be fun to hone it as I gain experience (and more warband cards!) 

Thanks, as always, for popping by and checking out my first "tactics" post. When I finally do get a game in, I'll let you know how I got on.

See you next week on The Art of Caesura!


Watching: Space Force


Next Week:

Going solo...