Embergard gives us our first view of the four archetypes of decks that Games Workshop has labeled for the new edition of Warhammer Underworlds. These decks, along with every warband, will have a play style associated with them. These play styles are Strike, Take and Hold, Flex, and Mastery. Since this is the introductory box to the new edition, the decks it contains can serve as signals to the intent that GW has when creating these archetypes. As such, I would also expect them to be more on the straightforward side since they are aimed at new players – and in a sense, we are all new players with the edition change.
Our Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard coverage:
- Embergard Core Rules & Unboxing
- Embergard Deck Reviews Part 1 – Blazing Assault & Emberstone Sentinels
- Embergard Deck Reviews Part 2 – Pillage and Plunder & Countdown to Cataclysm (this article)
- Warhammer Underworlds: Embergard Warbands Review – The Emberwatch & Zikkit’s Tunnelpack
I’m going to take a brief look at the cards included in these decks and highlight some that I feel serve as signposts to best express what the deck is trying to do. Each deck overview will start with the objectives, since those are the cards you need to score to actually win the game. Following the objectives will be the power cards, which are made up of ploys and upgrades that help support the objective scoring gameplan. There’s a lot going on in these decks, so I’m splitting coverage across two articles. The first covered the Blazing Assault and Emberstone Sentinels decks. This one will highlight the Pillage & Plunder deck as well as the Countdown to Cataclysm deck.
Warband selection as of the time of writing is pretty limited – only the Emberwatch and Zikkit’s Tunnelpack from this very same box are available, but Games Workshop has already previewed the next two brand new warbands as well as a release of 16 returning warbands, plus free-to-download rules for an additional number of previously released warbands. Any warband pairing recommendations are thus going to be based on vibes and previous edition experience until we get more information.
We’ve made it to the Flex deck in the box now, so it’s time to expect something in between the two decks that were covered in the previous article. Little bit of fighting, little bit of treasure token shenanigans, and… a whole lot of delving, apparently. Pillage and Plunder dives deep on the mechanic to delve in a power step and gates many objectives behind that. If you’re not super familiar with delving, it’s something a player has the option to do once in each power step. If one of your fighters is standing on a feature token (the double sided hexagon tokens that are treasure on one side and cover on the other), you can flip the token to its opposite face and give that fighter a stagger token. Typically, this is done to “remove” treasure tokens from the field which can hamper your opponent’s scoring or make scoring some of your own objectives easier. For instance, it’s a lot easier to control all of the objectives in someone’s territory if all but one have been flipped over and you’re guarding the last one.
I haven’t had the opportunity to test this deck out yet, but I am curious to see how similarly it will play to a Take & Hold style. You’re technically focused on feature tokens but instead of wanting to control the treasure side of them, you want to land on them, flip them, and can then move on to brawl and hunt for more treasure.
Objective Cards
One thing I mentally groaned at when flipping through these objectives were that some of them are dependent upon remembering how the game state was at the beginning of the battle round. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these types of objectives; I just find I sometimes have trouble rewinding the game in my mind to remember what models were standing where 15 minutes and 8 turns ago. These types of objectives are nothing new, and the game has done fine with them in the past. Perhaps I merely need to “get good” as the kids say.
My own personal memory issues aside, the objectives themselves are highly focused on delving. A full 7 of the 12 are either keyed off of performing the delve mechanic or counting on treasure tokens not being present. For the surges, Aggressive Claimant (attack a target in neutral territory, or attack a target on a treasure token and the target isn’t on the token anymore) has the dubious honor of being one that is fully in your opponent’s control on whether you can ever score it. Others like Claim the Prize (delve in enemy territory, or any territory if you’re the underdog) and Delving for Wealth (delve 3 or more times in one combat phase) want you to flip those tokens – interestingly, Delving for Wealth has no restrictions on needing to delve different treasure tokens, so you can just stand on one and flip it three times if needed. End phases likewise reward you with hefty glory boosts for doing these activities, such as 2 glory for Broken Prospects (delve 3 different treasure tokens in a battle round or delve a treasure token that was held by an enemy fighter) and 3 glory for Strip the Realm (score if there are no treasure tokens on the battlefield or if no enemy fighters hold treasure tokens).
Aside from the delve incentives, there are also a few focused specifically on making move actions. The surges Share the Load (scores after a friendly fighter moves if other surviving friendlies are on feature tokens) and Hostile Takeover (make two attacks that aren’t part of a charge) – this last one doesn’t reward a move action per se, but positioning around with moves to later make attacks is a reliable way to score it.
Power Cards
Scoring these objectives is going to require pushing forward into enemy territory, so you’re going to need some ways to keep your fighters alive especially if you’re going to be staggering them from delving. Fortunately, the power deck is willing to provide tools such as the ploys Wary Delver (give a guard token to a friendly fighter with a charge token) or the upgrades Impossibly Quick (+1 save dice, but the upgrade is discarded after an enemy fails an attack against your model) and Frenzy of Greed (if on a feature token in enemy territory or in a stagger hex, your fighter can’t be affected by cleave or ensnare and can’t be given stagger tokens).
As is the case with all of these decks, there are also movement and positioning options. The ever present Sidestep and less-ever-present Commanding Stride will come in handy, but the deck has unique options as well with Explosive Charges (a domain granting friendly fighters +1 movement as part of a charge), Tunneling Terror (teleport a friendly fighter without a move/charge token into a stagger hex, then give them a charge token [or a move token if you’re underdog]), or the upgrade Canny Sapper (grants a one-use reaction to playing a power card to teleport the fighter to a stagger hex or starting hex in your territory). The teleports in particular are going to be telegraphed because of the stagger hex limitation, so if you get the option to choose starting territories, keep their positions in mind.
General Thoughts
Rivals: My first thoughts on using Pillage and Plunder as your Rivals deck is that it’s flavorful and fun, plus has some extra moving parts and skill expression possibilities when compared to the Strike and Take and Hold decks. The attack action upgrades and Gloryseeker (see below) both give the deck the potential to punch up, so that’s some immediate value to warbands that tend toward more, weaker fighters. Thorns of the Briar Queen were traditionally a sort of mix of wanting to brawl and care about feature tokens, so if they retain some of their old personality I could see this being a potential match.
Nemesis: There’s definitely a few cards in here that feel like prime candidates to replace ASAP – whether it’s Tough Enough’s situationally ignoring ensnare and cleave, or Linebacker taking an entire card to only add Brutal to an attack. There are enough mini-themes in this deck to allow it to pair with others fairly well. The charge focused Swift Step (an upgrade that grants the reaction to push your fighter 1 hex after a charge) and Explosive Charges can easily find a place in an aggressive gameplan like Blazing Assault’s, while an objective like Aggressive Claimant can help a Take and Hold play style score from your opponent’s attempts at stopping you from scoring.
Jake’s Picks
Crumbling Mine: Delving usually requires a fairly substantial investment of getting a fighter to the right spot (typically using one turn) and then staggering the fighter to flip the treasure token over. This is a “free” flip, which can both seriously hinder Take and Hold objectives and also set up some of your own scoring without costing one of your precious turns. The downside is it isn’t actually delving, so you won’t be scoring things like Claim the Prize which specifically trigger off delving, but it does still help with the ones like Strip the Realms that just want the treasures gone.
Gloryseeker: I like the restraint that’s being shown with + damage cards so far. There are a few that add grievous (which means it can’t stack and also limits other weapon runes from being applied) and others like Gloryseeker have limited applications in which they take effect. At the same time, being able to have this in as a sort of safety valve against big bruisers having too strong of an impact is handy.
Burrowing Strike/Excavating Blast: Weapons have returned! These upgrades give your fighters another profile to choose from when making attacks. It’s helpful for the weenie swarms that tend of have unimpressive attacks, or in these instances it can give a melee only warband additional reach so they can threaten beyond what their range normally would be. Plus it’s just funny picturing a magical flying squid wielding a slingshot that fires dynamite.
From the teasers in the preview articles that Games Workshop put out, this was the deck I was the most excited to see in full. It has a wacky plot card, and as soon as we learned you can increment your cataclysm tracker from having a friendly fighter be slain, I thought there would be some fun potential here. There’s also some inherent synergy in moving the tracker if you use a Take and Hold approach, because if you’re standing on feature tokens that means your opponent can’t be.
Objective Cards
It’s worth noting that this deck has the same glory ceiling as the other decks at 16, but one of the objectives is Spread Havoc (gain glory equal to your cataclysm value, maximum 2), so you’re only going to reach that cap if you score it as a 2 pointer. That said, it’s literally an automatic scoring objective – if you sit down and spend every turn doing nothing but passing, you’ll still be able to score this for 1 or potentially 2.
This deck lacks a central plan like the other three, so your goals are going to have to be more varied than simply attack, stand on treasure tokens, or delve. In fact, the objectives feel all over the place – for ones that care about the Cataclysm tracker, there’s Spread Havoc mentioned above which wants a high Cataclysm value, Wreckers (score if the number of damage or slain enemies is greater than your Cataclysm value) which wants a low Cataclysm value, and the surge Collateral Damage (score after you advance your tracker for a fighter being slain or for any reason if you’re the underdog) which doesn’t really care what your value is as long as it isn’t maxed out I guess.
There’s a bundle of objectives focused around holding treasure tokens, which makes sense given that’s a way to increase the Cataclysm tracker. Set Explosives (hold 2 or more treasure tokens and all of the treasure tokens in any territory), the pun named Uneven Contest (hold each odd-numbered treasure token), and the surge Shocking Assault (hold all the treasure tokens in neutral territory) will push you towards standing on those shiny hexes. There is another, larger set of objectives that will push you to engage in combat. The surges Perfect Cut (make a successful melee attack and the target has no successful save rolls) and Overwhelming Force (make a successful melee attack that rolled 4 or more attack dice) go with the end phase Hounds of War (2 or more enemies are slain and/or damaged, and any of those were slain in the previous combat phase) to incentivize a bloody brawl.
Power Cards
The power cards have a little more focus on interacting with the Cataclysm tracker than the objectives do. Whether they’re impactful enough to be worthwhile is another matter. The End is Nigh (it’s a ton of text but it boils down to asymmetrical chances of both players discarding power cards), Growing Concerns (reduce enemy fighters’ move by your cataclysm value for the next action), and Do or Die (inspire a friendly fighter for a number of turns equal to your cataclysm value; they then uninspire and can never inspire again) all get slightly better as you tick up your counter, but the effects aren’t terribly impactful and I question whether they’re worth the effort. There are others that are worth jumping through hoops – Utter Conviction (1 cost upgrade that sets a fighter’s save value to your cataclysm value) can be darn annoying later on in a match, Total Collapse (roll an attack dice for each cataclysm value you have; if you get any swords or criticals you deal a damage to a fighter of your choice with the option to do more damage to your own fighter..) and Sunder the Realm (roll an attack dice for each cataclysm value you have for each fighter within 1 of neutral territory; if you get any hammers or criticals, you deal a damage to that fighter) are examples of the very potent ping ploys, but they’re unreliable early game and never guaranteed to work.
Branching out from the cards that care about your cataclysm value, there’s the accuracy boosting ploy Savage Blow (count rolls of surrounded as successes for an attack), Violent Blast (push each fighter within 1 hex of a chosen stagger hex 1 hex) to shuffle both enemy and friendly fighters around if they’re in the vicinity of a stagger hex, and Counter-Charge (a ploy that reacts to an enemy attack and lets you push one of your fighters up to 3 hexes as long as they end adjacent to the attacker) can rocket a fighter into an inconvenient spot for your opponent.
General Thoughts
Rivals: Take into consideration I’m no expert, but this feels like it’s going to be the weakest of the four decks for the Rivals format. It has the most disjointed plan and I feel like it has the highest amount of duds in the power deck. I do still like it for the flavor, and a silver-lining is that it would be a great deck to play as your deck in a teaching game where your student/opponent uses one of the other decks. This way you can show off a variety of approaches, weird cards, and (perhaps) give your demo recipient a little advantage when playing. Having a warband with enough fighters that you can afford to sacrifice some to increment your cataclysm tracker sounds like a solid plan, and as such I’d first give it a shot with something like Spiteclaw’s Swarm, Zikkit’s Tunnelpack, or the Grymwatch. Raise warbands can double dip on having a fighter be slain, increment the cataclysm tracker, then raise the fighter to come back and potentially die again – this time without giving your opponent any bounty and potentially still incrementing your tracker.
Nemesis: All of the above goes out the window when considering Countdown to Cataclysm for Nemesis. Due to the scattershot focus of the deck, I’d wager any of the three other decks and whatever comes out in the future can poach cards from here. I don’t think there’s enough to build a control style deck in the game yet, but The End is Nigh, Growing Concerns, the various ping cards, and Burnt Out (an upgrade that gives a fighter the action to stagger a friendly fighter and you draw 2 power cards, 3 if you’re the underdog) could find a slot in such a deck if it comes out in the future. I don’t think I’d use this deck as the framework for a Nemesis deck, but could easily see strip mining it for utility cards to augment another gameplan.
Jake’s Picks
Set Explosives: A 2 glory objective that can be flexible in its use in either a passive or invasive manner, I can see me adding this to a variety of Take and Hold or Flex playstyle decks. I also like that it has counterplay available to it, which is less a “this card is good” and more “this is what I think objectives should be like.”
Driven By Pain: As someone who is fond of the big brawler archetype (hello to my buddies Kainan and Wielder of the Blade) as well as elite fighters in general (Gorechosen, Thricefold, Crimson Court, etc) having a card that can keep a bruiser active longer is appealing. The added bonus of parking your pile of wounds on a treasure token and then telling your opponent that even if they succeed on an attack, they have to choose to either not drive you off it or heal you is an unappealing choice for them to make.
Desperate Rage: Two hammer attacks aren’t particularly accurate, so I wouldn’t want to make this swing without adequate support. The three damage is quite an impactful blow if your fighter can land it, so ensuring you position well and can target flanked or surrounded enemies will go a long way to making the downside of the weapon less painful. There may even be times when you would like a little poke on your own fighter, such as with Grandfather’s Gardeners who were previewed last week and inspire when they’re vulnerable. Or just throw it on some little 0 bounty dork like Tik-Tik and laugh as they body a Stormcast.
Closing Thoughts
Like I mentioned in the previous article, I have mostly positive feelings about the decks in Embergard. I’m probably the lowest on Countdown to Cataclysm, but I’ll admit it could be because I was expecting a lot from it since it was this edition’s first plot card deck and the theme sounded like a lot of fun. I do feel like it delivered on the latter, and I definitely plan to play with it both as a stand alone Rivals deck and as part of a Nemesis pairing because of the theme and fun factor. I’m also very much an average player (at the time of writing, my total win rate in Underworlds is 50.5%) so it’s possible there’s more here than I’m seeing at surface level.
Pillage and Plunder may edge out Countdown to Cataclysm as my favorite of the bunch. I always felt delving had a lot of room to be explored in game mechanics so it’s pleasing to see exactly that being done. Strip the Realm is something I’m going to try to score multiple times and likely wind up regretting it, but I think a 3 glory objective with counterplay baked in is a great risk/reward balance.
The amount of options are staggering. With four decks and around 30 warbands, that’s 120 Rivals options alone. Getting into Nemesis, and especially considering we apparently have two more decks coming hot on the heels of Embergard’s release, there’s so many combinations that I can’t wait to explore. Time to get busy!
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