Warhammer Underworlds CC Rivals+ Tournament recap with Ironsouls | Feb 2022

As we ease restrictions in Sydney, Combat Company is hosting their events again. The last event was a championship format played in November 2021. This week was a Rivals+ format (also sometimes referred to as Warlord format). Turnout was solid, with 9 people attending the event, each hoping their dice will give them the crits they need. For those unaware, the deckbuilding rules for Rivals+ is below (copied from the event).

This event is where players can use the Faction specific cards that come with their warband and then choose either the Essentials card deck, the Silent Menace deck or Illusory Might Rivals Deck to add cards in from.
You can include as many or as few cards from your chosen additional deck as you like, so long as you follow the standard rules to Construct Your Deck on page 19 of the Harrowdeep Rulebook.

The decklist

It’s time to dust off the Ironsoul’s and crack some Underworlds skulls. Here’s the decklist I ended up bringing, pairing Ironsoul’s Condemners with the Essentials Cards Pack. Some card selection choices below:

• [Daylight Robbery] does nothing half the time, and the other half swings you 2 glory.
• [Dark Darks] Besides being a ranged attack, it’s also a 3 dice attack action that can help trigger your inspire conditions.

I initially had Myari’s Purifiers, but I was too tired from playing way too much Total War Warhammer 3. I switched to Ironsoul’s because the warband strategy is simpler to execute. There isn’t much consideration for what the right move is, since most of the time charge towards your enemy is the right play.

Round 1, da Gitz

First pairing was against Zarbag’s Gitz. The first game I managed to score a turn 1 kill on [Sourtongue]. The rest of the first game was stormcast treating Goblin’s like golf balls to be knocked off the board. My opponent Justin, managed to drop [Infestation] on me and reduce the glory gap, but I was already far ahead. Game 2 started off poorly, with instead [Sourtongue] swinging his weapon uninspired and taking out [Tavian] as the first blood in the first action phase! For a warband where the enemy outnumbers you 3 to 1, losing the first fighter is a horrendous start. Fortunately [Brodus] was able to take out Sourtongue in response. The second game ended up much closer in glory, I managed to kill 5 goblins and lucky for me [Tavian] was the only casualty for the remainder of the game. [Infestation] was scored against me again, and I missed my attack to take out the 6th goblin. It turns out lucky for me I missed that last attack and my opponent was unanble to score [Pure Carnage] as only 6 fighters were out of action at the end of the game.

Round 2, Stormcast-vengers: Civil war

Second pairing was up against Gavin bringing in the Farstriders. I honestly did not expect to face another stormcast warband, but Ironsoul’s will happily fight anyone. Our game was over blazingly fast. Charges were made and fighters were taken out. Farstriders is surprisingly lethal, and he was able to take out some of my Condemners in both games. They have out of sequence attack actions including [Retribution] and their close combat attacks are nothing to laugh at, but ultimately Ironsoul’s just hits harder. A few crit rolls later I secured a fast 2-0.

Having finished our game earlier, I spent a bit of time watching the game next door. The winner of this game would be my opponent next round. While we finished our best of 3 set, Kent (Soulraid) and Sean (Mollog) were still in the middle of their first game. The fish elves flew past Mollog and killed all his little friends, scoring a fat pile of Glory and leaving Mollog to die of loneliness. The second game, Mollog managed to get a quick upgrade and smack down [Elathain] himself in the first phase. While watching this match, a curious scenario came up: What happens when [Forgotten Nightmares] is in effect and Mollog makes a scything attack targeting 4 fighters?

Does the Soulraid player choose the target for each attack or does Mollog still cycle through each fighter? How many attacks does Mollog make? Any guesses? …

…

…

Turns out there’s actually an answer to this, and it’s buried in the Errata.

Forgotten Nightmares (Direchasm #241)
Q: How does Forgotten Nightmares interact with Attack actions
with the Scything keyword?
A: When an enemy fighter makes a Scything Attack
action while your Forgotten Nightmares card is in
effect, determine how many fighters would normally
be targeted. Your opponent resolves that many Attack
actions for the attacker, one at a time, and each time
must discard one power card or allow you to choose
the target of that Attack action (this could be the same
fighter more than once).

So this means if the [Fishy] is part of the scything attack, the Soulraid player can redirect attacks to the fish multiple times, assuming it continues to dodge incoming attacks.

Ultimately that game tied 1-1 due to time, so neither Kent or Sean ended up with the win. My final boss instead ended up pairing me against Craig’s [Lady Harrow’s Mournflight]. The champions of Dreadfane will duke it out for first place.

Round 3: Who is the champion of Dreadfane?

I won the initial board roll off and deployed my fighters as close as possible to apply pressure as early as possible. Ironsoul’s crew rolled crits early, resulting in a quick inspire. The game was a blowout in my favor, which is what happens when the Ironsoul crew get their crits going.

The next game Craig took the boards into the offset position, forcing me to spend the first phase moving up. At the end of the first phase, before I had even touched a single ghost, he was already up 4 glory points. With his early glory lead, Craig continued to cement his position by upgrading his fighters with deadlier upgrades and removing my Stormcast. The offset deployment left the Ironsoul crew in a poor position to apply pressure, and allowed the ghosts to do whatever they wanted.

Going into game 3, I won the roll off and opted for the front on deployment again. [Brodus] got a quick first turn kill on the [Screaming Maiden], but was dragged deep into enemy territory with a well timed [Call of the Grave]. Lucky for me, Brodus inspired avoided every attack that round, even with the supporting ghosts. With a successful alpha strike under my belt and [Brodus] dodging every attack, I eventually managed to knocked out all the ghosts except [Lady Harrow] herself. I nearly threw the game by trying to chase down his leader and confirm the kill but I did secure the win with [Conquest] and [Vengeance Satisfied].

I certainly would have lost that set if I didn’t win the final roll off for board placement. Lucky for me the crits were with me that day. Sigmar bless this ravaged dice.