Deadly Depths
A new Rivals deck along with a new warband release? Christmas came early fellow denizens of the underworlds! You can find the cards from the Gorechosen release at these links:
First Impressions
[D]AVY & [P]HIL
Rivals perspective: (P) Looking at the cards as a stand alone unit for rivals, or as a supplement for rivals plus, I think you need to be able to say the objectives are all relatively scorable and have a unifying, if not cohesive, theme. This pack seems to thread that needle, but just barely. The drive seems to be aggresive with some interest in cover hexes/feature tokens. This likely means you need a lot of dice or a lot of fighters to get enough chances for kills. We have certainly seen worse but if I were a betting man I'd say this is not unseating the universals pack anytime soon as best rivals supplement. For pure rivals there are probably bands that like this okay but I think anymore now factions decks will do it just as well if not better.
Championship Perspective: (P) Another rivals deck, another mixed bag for championship. There are a handful of gems that will probably see a decent amount of play, but it appears to be focused in the power cards again. The post rotation objective deck pools should be very interesting if for no other reason than forcing people out of their comfort zone. Let's get this review rolling with the new objectives:
P: Pretty much path to victory that is ever so slightly easier but only 1 glory? Feels like a pass to me. Positioning and kill requirements feels like too much here.
D: Might see play in R+. Not in champs.
P: Better than war in the shadows but only just. Not looking too good here for the objectives so far.
D: Not amazing, but it’s pretty hard to not be in position for this.
D: Uh- does the wording referencing “previous activation step” instead of Action Phase means it has to happen in that last activation of the round? If so… this is straight basura.
Shadows so scary the Shadeborn are scared.
P: The fact that this is any 4 fighters in cover makes this playable. For 3 glory I think this is pretty good but you need to be warry of the extra damage. ED eat your heart out...
D: This could probably happen. I expect some greedy deck-builders to give this one a go. Whether it pays off on the reg..
Yep, definitely the warband that scores this.
P: I don't know who at GW needs to hear this but objectives for killing over half a warband are already very difficult. Adding an additional condition to score without an additional payoff makes this a hard pass. Also pretty much guaranteed dead into any matchup with a raise warband.
D: Pretty tall order. Might not be so awful that you wouldn’t try it in R+.
Hope Morgwaeth has a lot of upgrades if she thinks she’s scoring this one like this.
P: So close. If it said any cover hex I think this sees play. As is it's a bit to opponent dependent. Not terrible though
P: If Shadeborn weren’t already spoiled for kill surges this would probably catch their attention.
Skaeth: “Please don’t have a ping, please don’t have a ping.”
P: These cards that check for being vulnerable are all so bad. There is no easy way to make sure this happens. More often than not you just don't wind up vulnerable and if you do it probably wasn't before you activated. The two glory is a nice thought though
D: New deck challenge. Where all the vulnerable mad scientists at?
Snuffing out a torch is about as damaging as Phil’s Klaq-Troq usually manages, so this art is accurate.
P: This is actually okay! But not good enough to see much play. The trick is making sure there are objectives at the beginning of a round. Which also makes this guaranteed dead round 1... Maybe it's not okay
D: It is not okay. One glory end phase that you can’t score R1? Ew.
P: Eh, this probably comes up in a decent number of games but it is impossible to control. Don't think this sees play.
D: Rivals card. This isn’t impossible to score in the first round, but it’s pretty unlikely, and it’s only 1 glory.
P: Maybe this works with warbands that can revive fighters? The 3EP is rough but the payoff is decent and can be scored in your own territory. I think this could see play but I'm thinking it may not be efficient enough. Could be a game winner in rivals at least.
D: I’m here for the saga.
D: I expect we may see this in a few champs decks as a surprise or a way to push glory ceilings even higher.
Looking for the clog.
P: A very weird supremacy that probably can't be played without flyers? Ghosts are likely okay with this but not sure who else?
D: Yikes! The first two can be scored by the same fighter! This is a decent one for ghosts. And maybe other passives that are okay with a chip.
P: Such a weird objective. I don't like it since this more often than not probably needs two or more kills in one round
D: Hrm. Yeah, probably not. Too much is out of your control.
P: Maybe this is a new horrors in the dark? Certainly better with range 2+ attacks. Probably best objective in this pack
D: Yeah, this is a surge good enough to see play, especially in a Range 2 or 3 warband.
P: It is also possible to cheat this a bit with cards that give charge tokens. Might be something there.
P: I'm sure there is a reason for doing this but I can't imagine what it would be. Given how tight spots for gambits are I think this stays on the shelf for now.
D: I think this is better than you think. Pull a feature token in your territory under a fighter who is a little closer to the nearest enemy. A rare one that doesn’t care about what side the token is showing. I won’t be surprised to see hold decks checking these out.
P: A minor accuracy and damage bump. Not terrible but I'd rather have no targeting restrictions for my accuracy ploys.
D: Okay for Rivals or Rivals +. Too many restrictions for too little payoff otherwise.
P: This is interesting... I could see this being disruptive to hold cover warbands or just useful for getting multiple tokens flipped ahead of time. Niche but decent I think. Important to note it is choose any fighter so could burn it to break illusions too
D: A little trouble seeing it. You could mess up people who want to hold cover? Too niche in my opinion.
P: Decent. This has a place for sure, though I much prefer reactions to add damage since this is telegraphed. Will still be able to catch people out though.
D: At least it’s feature, not cover or objective. No range restriction is the most interesting piece meaning ranged warbands have a rare damage nudge available.
P: +1 dice with no range restriction is good. This is especially good for warbands with easy access to support. I like it
D: You’re drunk, Phil! This is mostly a worse Determined Effort! But I guess if they stall, it hangs around. What’s this support theme doing in this deck?
P: Cute, but probably not great? Wounds for a pretty small shot at glory could find a home but you would need to be doing some odd things to begin with
D: Carlin would have a deck where you do this on the blue horror or something.
P: Temporary defence boosts never seem to work out as well as you would like. This is probably pretty mediocre.
D: Yep
Wow, trust Khorne to trash-talk water.
P: Very interesting mass ping but too easy to play around I think. This likely doesn't come up organically very often anymore since feature tokens are not in edge hexes
D: Hunh. Maybe for a ping meme deck?
Little bit rude, Senaela.
P: This could be pretty disruptive. Essential turns off a move or charge for a turn. Not entirely sure who wants it though.
D: I don’t think we usually see these single activation movement debuffs get played.
So noble.
P: Probably pretty decent? It plays pretty well at the beginning of the game for hold warbands and any invasion warband. Pushes are always good and push two fighters should always have folks attention.
D: What, what, what? I think this might get restricted. That’s crazy good.
P: Solid weapon choice. The cleave is situational but 4 dice is very nice.
D: Cleave is less clutch when you’re tossing this many dice and looking for crits, but it’s another solid cursed weapon.
P: Mollog probably loves this. Being able to not be pushed by opponents is big and being less vulnerable to shooting is a cherry on top
D: Oh! Cool! I remember taking Stone Form and such in Beastgrave. I bet this can see some use.
P: As a ploy this would be amazing. As a one time use action, I don't want anything to do with it. The timing to get to do this is so bad. You pull a fighter closer and then have to wait for the opponents turn to do anything about it. This is pretty much pointless to use on a fighter that can still move too. If you are playing pretty hard control you might find a spot for this but I'd be surprised.
D: EEeesh.
You know what else is a tasty snack? Dat Gorehulk!
P: This is interesting, push after any fighter is taken out. Can certainly make range 2/3 and scything fighters pretty scary. I suspect people will find creative ways to make use of this
D: Soundless Step is probably doing better for you most of the time, but maybe…
P: This is a fun way to give something like half a dice of accuracy. I still think it will end up being extremely powerful. The push is really nice gravy. Top shelf here
D: No range restriction, noice. Also- helps for things like Purifier inpsire or Steady Aim. Remember that reaction is optional. Include on a fighter with Darkening Stone. And this is after any of your activation steps, so this can be carefully timed.
P: Ensnare is okay but I'm not sure it is enough to take this. The flying might be clutch into ExD but then the ensnare is wasted
D: Ensnare is pretty meh. Flying is nice if you’re really worried about Exiled Dead.
P: I like it but have a hard time knowing how disruptive it will actually be. Certainly messes with ranged warbands though
D: Oh. Deintalos might like this one. Good tech for passive warbands too. Can combo nicely with upgrades or fighters that reduce dice in attacks from adjacent fighters.
P: I think this is probably pretty decent. This is pretty easy to pull off and is like having an extra objective in your deck
D: The best map fragment action. This might see play even without other Map Fragments in the deck.
Now sharing more than just pain.
P: I don't think this is good? But maybe there are some neat tricks to be pulled
D: So weird. There’s maybe a strat out there that can do something wild with this. I can’t picture it, but I want to believe it’s out there.
You’re creeping me out Brydget.
P: Probably not great? Maybe some use for extra ping but I have to imagine there are better ways to do it
D: Cost of an action is high. It’s unblockable, though, so…
Summary
There you have it, some new interesting designs but nothing that is an obvious inclusion for every deck. That is probably a good thing to be honest, even if it isn't exciting some times. I personally have my eye on the new upgrade Lurking Horror! But enough of what we think, let us know what you think. Will you be slotting any of these into you champs decks? Trying them out for Rivals? Looking forward to what you all do as we round out the Nethermaze season.