Sepulchral Guard Revamped

Welcome to our rundown of the overhauled Sepulchral Guard. Make sure you catch our podcast coverage and blogs. For everything out with this release window, follow these links:

Thanks go to GW for providing a review copy to make this content possible.

First Impressions

[D]AVY, [P]HIL, [J]OSH, & [S]KYLER

D: The third warband we ever saw for the game and the first that attempted the holding horde archetype. The Sepulchral Guard have seen any number of ups and downs over the course of the game, but it’s hard to argue that their cards couldn’t use a bit of a modernization. Let’s take a look!

J: Boosted to a shield defense, yes plz. Cleaner and slightly looser inspire in case opponent decides to mash one spook in particular.

J: *Josh returning to the scene of the crime after looking at the upgrades.* Sweet googly moogly, y'all. Warden can now use his ability even on fighters who already have move and charge tokens. We're playing 3D chess with some serious move shenanigans up in here.

J: Right off the rip, big fan of "Alt" inspired art even if it's just spooky necromantic effects. Fun narrative flair that they didn't have to add, but did.

D: There's the Warden with one of the best attack profiles in Shadespire. I kinda love that it's real good... and you still don't want to risk him. The defending on blocks is a modest but welcome bonus.

J: Shield upgrade is nice since, ya know, HE'S HOLDING A FREAKING SHIELD. Also damage boost, yaaaasssss.

J: Stagger boost is nice alongside keeping the damage the same. Means he's a bigger threat without having to give up glory, but still gets a boost if he does.

J: No change. I guess they can’t *all* get glow-ups.

J: This boi was already a menace so keyword cleanup and nothing more is sensible. Almost wish he'd gone up to two dodge but again, can't all get a glow-up…

D: Could have upgraded him to have pants, tho…

J: Shield upgrade, ok. Nawt bad. I like that they gave them names to distinguish between them, but I also really enjoyed referring to them as “Nameless Petitioner 1/2/3” like you would in movie credits. Very glad they didn’t change them to different profiles between the petitioners. I think there’s enough mental hoops to jump through with target priority as-is without making each petitioner a variable.

D: Even just getting one block for defense is a solid get for these guys. But there’s more interaction with them in the rest of the deck, too.

J: Love the name Rising Petitioner, very narrative. Still gonna call him Short Round.

D: Best petitioner.

Objectives

J: This one's all fun n' games until someone one-shot's the Warden. Attack profiles aren't consistent enough IMO to assume you'll get kills AND keep the bodies coming from your end.

P: The nice thing with this though is that your resurrections make this a bit easier. Power card resurrection makes this pretty solid I think.

J: Wish they'd given this the same treatment as The Warden's inspire mechanic, but still seems pretty reasonable.

P: Raise two fighters in the same round feels a bit steep for one glory. My guess is that you are likely only doing one raise per round unless you get a ploy to raise or things are going very wrong and all you are doing is trying to get fighters back.

J: *Urge to castle with FF intensifies*

P: The march forward strat feels risky to me but for two glory it is worth a try.

J: Conditional kill surge... pretty "eh" about it. Yes inspired typically means more accuracy or damage but still not great.

P: Feels like a Nemesis card to me.

J: Well, it's better than the third-phase, single-glory version they started with. Pretty much guaranteed to score if you're playing the game and don't get tabled.

P: I think this is relatively easy until round three. For one glory I think you are hoping to see this in round one.

J: Real men add up to one single, superior number and stay there respectably to end phase. None of this wishy-washy X+ and out after an activation weakness.

J: I like it though, seems fairly scoreable for a warband whose action economy is 1 activation to hold two.

P: Should be interesting to see how this scoring window impacts this. Having to do this after an opponents activation may make it difficult to keep on the objectives.

D: I like the timing- it gives your opponent a chance to respond.

J: 1 Glory for hold more... eh? Easy enough I guess but historically hold more has had more value.

P: ...but was ubiquitous across almost all champs decks for being a trivial two glory. I think this is the correct change. Either that or they could have had a conditional way to make it worth two but still a solid card.

D: Trivial may be overstating it but I think this is a good objective to just overlap with things you’re probably already trying to do.

J: OOOOOF, whadda nerf. Respawns clear tokens, so this just became near impossible in Round 2+. This was already a pretty iffy include to begin with, now it's just a no-go for me.

P: Agree, this is pretty tough to pull off. If it was just all surviving rather than 5+ it would be significantly better.

D: The piece here that isn’t totally a nerf is that it used to be your *whole* warband. So… I guess it’s a little easier than it used to be in round 1?

J: *URGE TO CASTLE WITH FF INTENSIFIES*

P: Strictly worse version of supremacy which also doesn't see much play anymore. Definitely take in Nemesis but probably hard pass in Champs.

D: I’m less certain about that hard pass, but I’ll have to play it out to see.

J: Leader-specific kill surge. No.

J: I thought about it for a few more seconds, and the answer is still "No," but with more conviction.

P: Old card they carry forward. Agree it isn't very good.

D: Solid in Rivals and maybe even Nem, though. The Warden's got a great inspired attack action.

J: Surge for the leader's inspire condition? Yes please.

D: I like the idea that you can try to force the opponent to kill to prevent your "hold" style objectives... and that permits inspires and scoring these style objectives.

J: As someone who has played around with being in enemy territory with Seppy G... I'm tempted. Surge window with *slightly* tankier fighters makes me wanna just march up the board and overwhelm the opponent but this has bit me in the past.

P: If this scored after your activation or after a power step it would be great. As is, I think it has potential but your opponent might just blow up your fighters that move forward.

D: I like it a lot. Two glory surge, and having this means any time you stand on an objective in enemy territory, your opponent *has* to react or run the risk of a big penalty.

Gambits

J: This took both a direct and indirect nerf. Direct - limited to adjacent enemy. Indirect - fighter defenses went up so will be straight up dead in hand more often.

J: No change, just a little window clean up and keywords.

P: Great if you get some weapons or some push tech. Glad they got to keep this one.

D: You can really set things up with the Prince of Dust now. Slam someone over with knockback, stagger them, and finish them off with whoever is in position.

J: Round-long +1 move? Yes. Please.

P: Very good for a warband this slow.

J: Out-of-sequence move shenanigans? Yes.

P: Weird that this only works on a fighter with a move token but still very good for repositioning.

J: LAWD THE SHENANIGANS JUST KEEP COMIN'

J: YES. PLEASE.

P: Push two without direction restrictions is so powerful. Auto include.

D: I'm liking the lean towards extra advantages for raised fighters.

J: Staple card, only changes are keyword cleanup.

D: Hold up! This gives a charge token, my dude. That's a big deal- impacting some of those more gruesome "raise and attack" strats.

J: Oh, you right! Missed the charge token. At least the new Warden ability lets you tee up some repositioning but yeah, definitely keeps it from being a rise-and-bonk card.

J: If you see smoke, it's me burning brain cells trying to justify doubling down on Reborn in Darkness.

P: Pretty nice if you can make this happen at the end of a round to set up for the next. Otherwise getting the charge token makes this a bit tough to work with.

J: You heard it here first, folks. Skellies can no longer scream to every corner of the board.

P: An understandable downgrade, but a frustrating one. Was this really too strong to keep in the game?

D: I mean, kind of. This is still super strong. This is faction specific Hypnotic Buzz and that was really popular.

J: Yeah. Range-less opponent push tech was an auto-include for a reason and I'm glad it's phasing out.

J: Seems an unnecessary change to limit it to being a leader restricted card that the leader himself can't use, but with Salvage existing I'm not bent about it. Lots more baked-in opportunities to tee up attacks, too.

D: I still think you see it in most SG decks.

J: Hmm... Single round, single glory denial on <1/2 of the warband. Initial reaction is "meh" but I dunno, could force some interesting play choices.

P: I could see this being very annoying. Better in Champs where there are strong weapons to hand out to your petitioners.

Upgrades

J: Against bones, spendable glory really isn't the problem. There's plenty to go around and two other petitioners to pick on.

P: Agree, this is not doing enough to justify taking.

J: OH LAWD HOLD THE PHONE WE JUST HAD AN EPIPHANY

J: Warden's action can now be used on the same fighter multiple times in the same round. Move-move ability was already pretty spicy, this unlocks more spice.

D: I've never been sure that the three fighters vs. two fighters move is worth the whole upgrade slot... but I've never been good with these guys either.

J: It's really great for mid-late game where your action economy needs to make room for raising fighters.

S: *A wild Skyler appears from the depths of editing.*

S: SPEAKING OF EPIPHANIES. Ancient Commander lets you choose the Warden now as one of the fighters to be moved by it. Drops the word “other” found both on his ability and on the original.

J: +1 damage upgrade, conditional to charges, fighter specific... eh? Yeah upgrades have more staying power with revived fighters but, as with all +1 damage upgrades with conditions... Great Strength exists.

P: Fun part of this is it doesn't restrict to charges, just has to have a charge token. I think an extra source of plus damage is worth considering here, even in Champs.

D: Right, so it'll apply to the extra attack gambits or in the unlikely situation where this warband has charge tokens on every fighter.

J: +2 move and they removed the fighter restrictions. zip zip zoom

J: +1 damage and accuracy aura on a revivable fighter? Sweet jeebus that's an include.

P: Oh wow, this is pretty crazy. Good call by GW limiting this to range one attacks or this could have gotten out of hand.

D: Just in general, I like that there's some nod to making the petitioners have the option to, you know, do something. Supports on defense, too.

D: AND helps on attack action upgrades as long as they have R1!

J: With the conditions, really wish they'd have gone outside the box on this one and just done a flat -1 damage. Mostly cuz a petitioner is not going to take four arrows at 1 damage minimum.

P: I had the exact same thought. This could have just been flat -1 damage unless the attack had cleave or knock back. Probably could have been too strong on the Warden but I think it wouldn't have been that problematic.

D: What am I missing, Phil? Couldn't this go on the Warden now? Thematically, I like it a lot and I think you'll see it in Champs play for sure.

P: My comment was just to say this could have been stronger, ala what josh suggested that it didn't stop damage from going to zero but, if that was the case, it might have been too strong on the Warden. As is, this can 100% go on the Warden and will be used a lot.

J: Alright, so cleaning up and copying 2 of the Death cards isn't the worst thing in the world I guess.

P: Could be useful still but I am not sure I want to be putting upgrades on my petitioners unless it is making them more choppy.

D: I found Bonds of Death to be very powerful in Grymwatch for locking down objectives by bringing back a fighter immediately and running back onto it. Give someone a big weapon and this pretty much guarantees they'll swing it.

J: Spicy stat boosts, but fighter specific and loses the benefits of being on a revivable fighter... I don't think this makes the cut tbh.

P: Probably not. The breaks on death is what does this upgrade in for sure. Maybe too strong if it stuck around though...

D: Tough call. This can lock down a crucial objective. Get out of kill range and can't be driven off? In hold-heavy builds, I like it.

J: Hmmm.... Could come in clutch when you need to pull some extra shenanigans, but two revives now and lock down the leader can be damning. Nice way to close out a round if you've got bodies stacked.

P: God I hope I would never actually need to do this... but I suppose if you can afford to wait on your revives this makes the warband more efficient with its actions.

D: I'm not sure if it's good... but I really like the design.

J: On revivable fighters, I'll allow it.

D: And you'll like it!

Summary

J: I love the changes made to Sepulchral Guard. Are they gonna take tournaments? Your guess is as good as mine. Defensive consistency buffs, flexibility, card clarity, and even some recycled concept cards all smack of a game that's learned some valuable lessons over the years. I'm very excited to see how this resurrected Year 1 warband plays now that it's been Inspired ;)

The Mortal RealmsJune 3, 2023Comment