Unhinged Underworlds | Starblood Serial killers

Initially the Starblood Stalkers appear to be a fast scoring hold objective warband. Get onto objectives quickly, and keep your fighters alive long enough to close out the game. But what if instead of trying to keep our fighters alive, we trade them aggressively with our opponent… or even kill them ourselves?

Unhinged Underworlds is a column where we explore decks that may be a bit unhinged, break away from the standard or otherwise unusual. Our last one was with Ironsoul’s Casino so if you haven’t seen it, I would recommend checking it out.

But isn’t the Starblood Stalker is a hold objective warband?!

Just because their inspire condition tells you to do it, it doesn’t mean it is required to be played that way. Lets compare them to the Godsworn Hunt, they have more in common then you think.

Starblood Stalkers	The Godsworn Hunt
Has mostly fragile fighters	Has mostly fragile fighters
The leader is expendable	The leader is expendable
Can score glory even if most of the warband ends up dead	Can score glory if most of the warband ends up dead
Has mostly 4+ movement across their fighters	Has 4+ movement across all their fighters

But funnies aside, there are one key difference between the Warband when comparing them in this regard. The Starblood Stalkers has [Klaq] – who is a monster that swings for 3 damage right at the start of the game. This gives the Starblood Stalkers a key advantage, they have a fighter who can punch on and threaten your opponent while you work on getting glory to power up the little skinks. The Godsworn Hunt, has no such fighter. None of them hit for more than 2 damage until you find a way to inspire them.

So how does this even work?

Thanks to our reprinted friend, [Pure Carnage], we can get another 3 glory drop ontop of [The Great Plan]. We fit a bunch of other easy to score objectives to make sure [The Great Plan] comes to fruition while playing gambits and upgrades to trade our fighters with our opponent. Even if we kill just one fighter and lose every lizard, [Pure Carnage] is scorable.

Decklist please!

Here it is!

Almost every gambit and upgrade in this deck is designed for one thing, to make your skinks dangerous so they can trade out against your opponents fighters. The goal is to trade your fighters for theirs.

I’m not going to cover every individual card choice, but I will point out some key cards and why they make this deck function.

• [Lead from the Rear] is the main Dual objective you will need to score to guarantee [The Great Plan] is scored. It’s fairly easy and you can score this in deployment by making sure [Old Mate Kixi] deploys at the back.
• [In Cold Blood] is your backup plan if Kixi dies too early or if you don’t happen to draw [Lead from the Rear]. Throw one of your full health skinks at an opponent and this is an easy score.
• [Everything-to-Prove] and [Underdog] exist to reward you glory when your opponent kills your skinks. Since you also have a quarry [Everything to Prove] scores even if you happen to take primacy off your opponent. Being hybrid objectives, these also contribute to [The Great Plan].

• [Final Gambit] serves two purposes. It gives you an extra charge and serves as a way to kill off your own fighters to ensure [Pure Carnage] is achieved.

• [Rampaging Killer] also helps increase the casualty count, while also doubling as a way to give quarry to your own fighters if [Otapatl] bites the dust.

How do you even play this?

The remember you want to keep your eyes on the prize: [Pure Carnage] and [The Great Plan]. The goal is set up [Klaq] forward and threaten or trade him against your opponents fighters. Once you have a bit of glory, you can power up the skinks and have them trade as well.

The weapons such as [Silent Sword] are for [Otapatl], [Kixi] and [Tok]. Having a range 1 attack profile makes it easier to boost them up.

This deck is nonsense, it’s just pure chaos and dice rolls.

Well, it is pure chaos and dice rolls. Doesn’t mean it’s not effective.

Hope you give it a go. I really enjoy playing the Starblood Stalkers Serial Killers this way. Let me know what you think of this deck and enjoy knocking off miniatures in harrowdeep! There will be Starblood.