Shadespire

[The Other Dave]

OK, just as an illustrative example, here's how I put together my Banshee deck.
Starting with the fighter cards, I have 4 fighters with good move (4, inspiring to 5), OK-but-not-especially-reliable defense at 2 dodge, and anywhere from 2 to 4 health, definitely on the flimsy side with both those things together. The universally start with not-very-accurate attacks - most of them have 2 swords uninspired - which inspire to reasonably-accurate - still all swords, but anywhere from 2 to 4 dice, and fair damage at 2-3 across the board. Finally, they inspire by moving through enemy fighters during their activation. Not too difficult with 4 move, but it puts them right in the thick of things and no mistake.

For cards, in all cases it's a good idea to start with in-faction cards as they generally synergize with the warband's strength to some degree or another.

Starting with objectives. Although (as Jye noticed today) the warband is pretty fighty, I also put in a number of objectives that want me to hold objectives, partly because my low accuracy makes it hard to really count on getting hits or kills, partly because I'm rather speedy, and partly for denial, as any objectives I'm on are objectives my opponent can't be on. (Basically, this is a textbook "flex" approach.)

My surge objectives are:
One Will, an in-faction giving 1 glory for holding an even-numbered and an odd-numbered objective. Very flexible.
Inescapable Hunger, an in-faction giving 1 glory if one of my banshees moves through at least one blocked hex and ends adjacent to an enemy. Not too hard if I pick my boards right. (Narrator: Today, Dave did not pick his boards right.)
Fleeting Memories, an in-faction giving 1 glory if I finish a move action having passed through at least two objectives. Again, not too hard if I place my objectives right. (Narrator: ...)
Master of Terrain, a universal giving 1 glory when an enemy fighter is taken out by a lethal hex. As we'll see, I went heavy on gambits that push, and lethal hexes abound these days, so even if I can't get a hit and knock someone onto a lethal it shouldn't be too hard to get this.
Shortcut, a universal giving 1 if a friendly fighter teleports, basically. I have a gambit that does this, and one of my fighters gains a teleport ability after inspiring, so again, not so hard.
Branching Fate, a universal giving 1 if I roll 3 or more dice and get all different symbols. I have one fighter with 4 dice to attack, and a couple ways to get my defense up to 3 dice, so not too hard.

Then my end phase objectives:
Bitter Embrace, an in-faction for 2 if I have at least 2 surviving fighters and all my surviving fighters are adjacent to enemies. Since I'll generally be in the thick of it, not hard, and I have enough pushes to get me back next to people if I'm knocked back.
Nexus of Terror, an in-faction for 2 if I have the most objectives. Easier against more aggro warbands, but still not too tricky.
Ghostly Torment, an in-faction for 2 if I have at least 2 surviving fighters and at least two fighters (any fighters, not just mine) have any wound tokens. Easy peasy, especially since I tend to kill people by thousand cuts rather than one-shotting them.
Tide of Malice, an in-faction giving 2 if I have at least 2 surviving fighters and they're all inspired. My inspire condition isn't too hard, and is entirely under my control, so pretty easy.
Path to Victory, a universal giving 2 if any enemies were taken out of action that phase, and I hold at least two objectives. Synergizes nicely with Bitter Embrace, Ghostly Torment and my inspire condition.
Supremacy, a universal giving 3 if I hold 3 objectives. Tricky with 4 fighters, but 3 glory is huge - you see very few decks without this one.
You'll notice no third end phase cards! That's because I invariably draw them in the first turn, when they are worse than useless.

Power Cards! For gambits, I've focused very heavily on push tech, partly for denial and partly to keep my fighters out of harm's way after they charge through enemies and end up next to an angry berserker with no charge tokens. Also quite a bit of accuracy boosting.
Frightful Aspect, an in-faction push the enemy one hex card.
Call of the Grave, an in-faction card to push an enemy two hexes towards a friendly. Pushing 2 is huge, and it doesn't need to be towards the closest friendly so it's actually quite flexible.
Mirror Move, a universal letting me push any other fighter after my opponent pushes a fighter. Very annoying.
Two Steps Forward, a universal letting me push two friendly fighters one hex, then letting my opponent push one of their fighters one hex.
Irresistible Prize, a universal letting my push all fighters within 2 hexes of an objective one hex towards the objective.
Sidestep, your basic push a friendly one hex jobber.
Confusion, your basic swap-two-fighters dealio and an easy way to get Shortcut in addition to being, again, annoying.
Echoing Spite, an in-faction letting me re-roll a failed attack.
Spectral Charge, an in-faction giving +1 damage to the next friendly attack.
Shared Agony, an in-faction letting my give one of my wound tokens to an adjacent enemy fighter.

Upgrades follow the same sort of philosophy. Lots of focus on accuracy, lots of focus on boosting my lackluster defense / mitigating my not-so-great wound totals.
Hollow Hatred, an in-faction letting me re-roll the first attack the fighter makes each round.
Maddening Hunger, an in-faction giving +1 dice on the charge.
Veil of Grief, an in-faction +1 wounds.
Swooping Dash, an in-faction permanent +2 move. Sort of overkill, but makes those move-through-stuff objectives up there that much easier.
Survival Instincts, a universal that gives permanent Guard at the expense of becoming Quarry. This may become more of a penalty as more Hunters and more Quarry mechanics enter the game, but for now it's basically free Guard.
Sudden Growth, a universal giving +2 wounds and -2 move - not so bad since I'm speedy.
Tome of Offerings, which I mentioned in the previous post - +1 glory per kill.
Spectral Armor, a universal giving +1 defense if your defense is Dodge, which all my guys are - and 3 dice dodges are potential Branching Fate scorers.
Spiritbond, a universal letting a chosen fighter always be supporting the upgraded fighter - +1 to hit for everything while the other is alive, which is not to be sneezed at.
Potion of Rage, a universal you can discard to get +2 dice.

There's a few things in there I'm wavering on. Tome of Offerings, while great, depends on getting at least two kills with the fighter it's on, and with my lackluster damage and focus on pushing people onto spikes (which it doesn't give glory for) it's maybe not as efficient as it might be. Shared Agony heals only 1 wound, and there's enough out there that can one-shot my fighters it's maybe not all that useful. Supremacy I maybe want to reconsider after all. And Master of Terrain can be very situational. But overall, I'm going to give this deck a try and see how it works - and as I saw today, when it works it seems to work pretty well.

And that's how I tend to go about things - hopefully useful to see!

[me_in_japan]

Jye, Dave - many, many thanks! That is the info that I so desperately needed, and I defo have enough to be getting on with. I'll read through it all again when I have more time, and I will check out the pages/podcasts you mentioned (I think I've stumbled across canyourollacrit already, and yes, it's very helpful.)

Hopefully I can put this to good use someday soon!

[Jye Nicolson]

One thing that I implied and didn't make explicit is that for aggro decks, 4 damage is a really important number to reach.

Lots of extremely dangerous models (Stormcast, Magore's Fiends, most leaders, Rippa's Snarlfangs) have 4 health. Killing them in a single attack is good for a lot of reasons:

- Unbuffed attacks are unreliable and you only get so many buff gambits. It's no good doing 2 damage with a very accurate attack and then whiffing the next three.
- Most of the time when you attack someone and they don't die, you are by definition in their threat range for their turn, which will be right away. Even if they can't attack with that model (ie they charged earlier), you're opening yourself up to support shenanigans from their friends.
- Counterattacks generally require surviving the attack, so you want to avoid allowing your opponent a parting shot that could easily result in your attack being a straight trade.
- I can't think of any models with 4 health that your opponent can really afford to lose. It's guaranteed to put a hole in their plans, if not a fatal one.
- It's a massive swing in the action economy, particularly if the model you killed hadn't acted that turn. You may be able to force your opponent to cycle cards for lack of models to activate, while you are free to keep killing or have spare activations to help you score in other ways. Bringing forward the glory earned for killing the target is extremely useful too.

You don't have to get to 4 exactly - 3 and a push into a lethal hex or a follow up with Snare or whatever will do the job - and overkill is only useful for a couple of objectives. But an aggro deck without this capability will lose to elite decks.

(You can't kill Mollog in one activation but you really want to be able to do it in two, preferably without anyone dying in the intervening activation where he will be hitting for 4 or more himself)

The follow up implication that 5 health is a good number to be at if you can manage it also holds.

[me_in_japan]

All good info - thanks, Jye. I'm kinda vaguely hoping to make some kind of control/denial team, as that's where I'm most comfortable in Magic, but if that doesnt work out for me, Gruul* aggro is my second deck of choice, so there's always thumpin' things to fall back on if the more subtle arts escape me

*sorry, dunno if you do magic or not. Gruul would be...um...a combination of burny and stompy, i guess? Lot's of hitting things, certainly...

[Jye Nicolson]

I don't Magic and thought you were making a WoW reference!

I'd advise getting Grymwatch, they are extremely strong and one of the most self-contained decks right out of the box - then proxy cards for the rest of what you need while figuring out what you like (I assume as a Magic player you're way ahead of me here).

If you like the aesthetic and playstyle of Thundrik's Profiteers more, go right ahead and get them instead but you'd want more proxies.

[me_in_japan]

Bleh, I have the self control of a toddler I went and ordered the Grymwatch. (And not just cos you recommended them - I do have some self control.) I've had my eye on them for a while, and saw them for a reasonable price on evilbay. Should be with me by the end of december or so, as theyll be coming from the UK. The skydorfs, otoh, I'm not super sold on. I dunno - maybe if I looked at them in person I might be persuaded, but for now I'll pass on them.

and I dont know if I hadnt made it clear already, I'm actually pretty invested in shadespire already - I have (so far...)

Nightvault
Beastgrave
Mollog's Mob
Zarbag's Gitz

And my kids have (and therefore the cards are available...)
Ylthari's Guardians
Steelheart's Champions
The skellies
The other Stormcast with the eagle - the crossbow dudes...(sorry, not very up on my stormcast. It'll come...)

So i do have some cards to be getting on with - I just seem to be lacking in certain staples. Which is something I'm painfully familiar with thanks to MtG...

Anyway, I actually have a kid-free morning tomorrow, so I might even be able to build a proto-deck and see how it goes! (ooh, the excitement!)

[me_in_japan]

only took me a couple of weeks, but heyhey! I made a deck. Well, I had a first attempt at one, anyway. I can't find a way to export it here, so here's a link:

Also, I'm getting veeeery tempted by the Underworlds computer game. If I can get onto the december beta, or just, y'know, play the regular release, I could find myself getting quite into it, I reckon.

So, does anyone have any thoughts on my deck? Anything up to and including "that's crap, dave - try again..." is fine by me


*edit* also, I just signed myself up on Discord, which is a New Thyng for me. I dunno how tight competition is for spots as a beta tester on the PC underworlds game, but if they're still open when I drag my ass out of bed tomorrow, I intend to sign up for it. Is anybody else on Discord (and, aheh, have any idea how the heck it works, or indeed, what the heck it's for? I'm just there to sign up for the beta, tbh...)

[The Other Dave]

I'd say it definitely looks strong enough to try some games out with!

That said, I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Thorns, but some gut-feeling ponderings on some cards:

I can see what you're looking for with Conquest and Vengeful Advance, and the nighthaunt are surprisingly speedy, but it feels like a lot of eggs in one basket for what's basically a pretty slow warband stat-wise that will struggle to move *all* its fighters (I often found, for example, that going heavy on the Varklav push is all but guaranteed to leave Varklav himself stuck in some far-off corner) - you just need someone to long-board you and you're basically locked out of those 3 glory. It's personal prejudice, but I try to avoid those board-control objectives, partly because it gives you less flexibility to counter whatever your opponent is doing in your own territory and partly because board placement can really screw with scoring them.

I'd want to think about why exactly you want great speed, as it doesn't help with your main movement shenanigan in Varclav, and you don't have any objectives that are directly centered around moving 4 hexes instead of 3. You might be able to get more bang for your buck with something else.

Did you get in the UW beta? I missed the window this time around, being in a car bound for Gifu. The NDA probably lets me say I was in the previous one, and the only issue I really had was being in a different time zone from most of the userbase - hard to find games sometimes. Hopefully the final release would have a big enough userbase that it wouldn't be an issue.

[me_in_japan]

you just need someone to long-board you and you're basically locked out of those 3 glory.

aaaaah. A very good point. Tbh, this didnt even occur to me, as so far I've never actually played a game where the boards were placed that way. A rookie mistake, to be sure. Based off that, I'll definitely need to rethink the strategy, as I really, really dislike handing control over my own objective scoring to my opponent.

I'd want to think about why exactly you want great speed, as it doesn't help with your main movement shenanigan in Varclav, and you don't have any objectives that are directly centered around moving 4 hexes instead of 3. You might be able to get more bang for your buck with something else.

Fair point. I think I was aiming for improved mobility to generally aid objective scoring, but yeah, it is a less than elegant addition. I'll have a ponder about a better replacement.

Did you get in the UW beta? I missed the window this time around, being in a car bound for Gifu. The NDA probably lets me say I was in the previous one, and the only issue I really had was being in a different time zone from most of the userbase - hard to find games sometimes. Hopefully the final release would have a big enough userbase that it wouldn't be an issue.

I thiiink I did? I actually set an alarm to wake me at 7:00, filled out the form and fell asleep again. But, when I looked at it again later (after I'd woken up properly) it went straight to "sorry, we're full up, the form's closed" as opposed to the "hi, fill this out please" that I got the first time, so I guess I made it in? I await an email or something from them nearer the time to tell me how to proceed.

Many, many thanks for the very helpful input. Hopefully I'll be able to build a proppa deck sooner rather than later. Playtesting it is going to be a bugger, though. Ah well - roll on the digital revolution

[The Other Dave]

you just need someone to long-board you and you're basically locked out of those 3 glory.

aaaaah. A very good point. Tbh, this didnt even occur to me, as so far I've never actually played a game where the boards were placed that way. A rookie mistake, to be sure. Based off that, I'll definitely need to rethink the strategy, as I really, really dislike handing control over my own objective scoring to my opponent.

Yeah, making a concerted effort to move to decks where I have as much control as possible over how I score has been very liberating, in particular the two or three cards where I can basically just move a model around and get a glory. If I can combine my card to get glory by moving through two objectives with a charge and score some damage on top, so much the better, but I’m trying to train myself to remember that in the end it’s getting the pie plates that matters more than being inspired or even killing stuff necessarily. Just swooping off in a random direction and not even ending adjacent to anything isn’t a sexy move, but if it scores points it scores points.