Sons of Velmorn
Welcome to our quick rundown of all the new Sons of Velmorn cards with the Gnarlwood release. Make sure you catch our podcast coverage, of the release.
For coverage of the other cards in the release, follow these links:
Gnarlspirit Pack Rivals Deck Review
Tooth and Claw Rivals Deck Review
Daring Delvers Rivals Deck Review
First Impressions
[D]AVY & [P]HIL
An interesting middle ground for a death warband. No 2 wound glory bleeders like Sepulchral Guard, Thorns, Reapers, Grymwatch or Exiled Dead. Not quite as elite as Crimson Court, Mournflight, or Wraithcreepers. A splash of resurrecting. The crit fishing dynamic feels like a big potential for frustration.
Don’t high five this guy.
P: As far as leaders go this king seems a bit average. The thing that really seems like it will make him, and by extension the warband, go is his command tokens. Giving support to all the small fighters all the time feels quite good.
D: I really like that you're being pushed to activate him early when you'd traditionally want to hold a heavy hitting leader till late. Getting a global support out (well… not to Jedran) has potential to unlock quite a few cards.
P: The inspire condition feels swingy. Sometimes it will never come up and other times it will probably be immediate and suddenly this warband will be very scary.
P: The extra defense from the inspire feels important here. More damage is always nice too but I think this warband needs their king.
D: Inspiring to a potential 4 damage is a lot, but 2 smash won't hit it too often.
The big man. All he wanted was to be loved.
P: Look at this big boi. Continuing the trend of high damage low accuracy base attacks for these types of fighters feels like a good choice. Important to note this fella is not a grave guard so doesn't benefit from the leaders support ability.
D: And can't use a ton of their power cards either, for that matter.
P: Switching to smash here is nice. Getting rerolls against large fighters seems fantastic. (D: situationally) The last ability might be tough to leverage but more support shenanigans is probably better than we might expect.
D: If you somehow inspire him early, then the other fighters will gladly take the extra accuracy. Lord knows they need it.
Can we nickname him Hugh?
P: The first of two identical smaller fighters. Okay stats but that 1 damage might come to haunt people. The sibling rivalry ability is a nice caveat to make sure some of the fighters in the band will be able to inspire regardless of what the dice are doing.
D: Nearly identical, but yes. That grievous on two dice is going to be frustrating to both sides of the board. Being Grave Guard is important for these brothers, particularly in more restricted formats that will draw more heavily from faction cards.
P: Not much change here, though shields up is fairly interesting. Getting to be on guard after a crit isn't bad at all.
D: Well, it’s not great, either. Shield up feels kind of inconsequential for one defense die fighters. Can’t count on it, but could help you stay on features.
D: Worth noting: Helmar is slightly better than Faulk given he has (the admittedly situational) Cleave ability when inspired.
Over 19,000 career yards from scrimmage and only speed 3?
P: See his brother Helmar.
D: I think you mean Hugh.
I thought the youngest was supposed to be the spoiled one.
P: Being 2 dmg base is significant. Stagger on crits may not come up enough to really matter.
D: When it does, it’s going to inspire you and anyone supporting and make the target even more vulnerable. Need to check the timing to see when the guard token peels off.
P: Picking up extra dice and a scything options? Feels pretty solid.
D: Worth mentioning the Sibling Rivalry Reaction- because it might be the only way you inspire in some games.
Objectives
Calendar pose.
P: Kind of like a delayed kill surge. I don't hate it, and it's definitely better than end phases that have this same check. Probably a playable rivals card and that's about it.
D: Yeah, this has matchup problems and needs your boss to be alive too.
Marshall knows how to spike a football and spike a Darkoath.
P: This is solid as kill surges go. With two conditions you won't get locked out by having attacks that don't have the right damage, though you could still get locked out by dice.
D: If this only had the first caveat, you'd be in a lot of trouble given how much grievous is in this warband.
P: They have been pushing this end phase card for years now and I'm still not buying that it is playable. Bad into elites because you need to take out multiple tough fighters and bad into hordes because you just have to kill lots of fighters. It should come up in rivals a decent amount but could brick very easily.
D: At least this scores even if you're wiped out in return. It’s kind of a third end phase, though. More matchup problems too. Resurrecting or elite tanky warbands will make this a struggle.
P: This would certainly be better with a faster warband. I also think that delving giving stagger will make this less reliable because your opponent is more likely to be able to hit you off of objectives now. Not bad at all but it will take work in the power deck I think.
D: One of them being able to be in neutral territory makes this a much more enticing prospect.
Didn’t need most of that head anyways.
P: Feels like an auto include. You likely want to have the cards to revive fighters and with two or three this score should be automatic.
D: Once you see the power cards, this won't feel like so much of an auto-include.
D: If you're taking this, plan to use a restricted slot on Partial Resurrection.
P: Rough stuff, but for three maybe it makes up for how hard it is? My gut says pass on this one though.
D: That's a big score, but a big ask. You may go this way if you're also resurrecting, to keep your numbers up. There’s decks that made hay with Absolute Dominance and Demolish the Opposition, but this might not be that warband.
Where’s your two block now, big man?
P: We have seen this before and it is always serviceable. I do think the king would rather reign in safety though...
D: Yeah, not my first choice of kill surge. You wanna keep this guy safe.
P: With a fairly random inspire this could be a very frustrating card, but it should be doable, especially with revives.
D: At 2 glory, it makes you sit up and think about it. But it can get stymied by dice and deaths. Tough ask. But maybe…
P: This is probably a Pseudo 3EP but it does feel inevitable so probably worth a play unless you are extremely invasion aggro.
D: If you can build towards counter punch, I think I like it. Holding one objective is trivial. Two fighter kills has some occasional bad matchups, though.
He died in a freak spear fight accident.
P: Probably another pretty easy kill surge but I don't think you want more than one usually and this one has more conditions than others.
D: Good one for that counter-punch strat. Someone charges in on you, and you can mulch them back. Kinda like this one. But Clinical Efficiency might have the edge.
P: Very good. Both conditions should come up in a game eventually so this should be pretty automatic.
D: Now we’re talking! Don’t make me get a kill! Solid, especially with Velmorn and Jedran's support abilities. A nice side bonus is the occasions where you can score in enemy activations. Always a power move.
P: Probably fairly easy to do, but maybe not what you want to do? If you need a reliable one glory this could do the trick.
D: Can't do it in R1 without some kind of help, though. Not the biggest fan- I want my 1 glory end phases to be scoreable in about any round.
Gambits
P: We have seen similar effects before to move a fighter into support position and they are usually pretty good. I think especially since these guys rely on support for accuracy and inspire.
D: You don't even have to push to a supporting position, though that will often be a logical choice. But a potential push 3 is huge.
D: Also, FWIW, Cautions Manoeuvre and Land Grab are the only other keyword "Manoeuvre" cards I'm aware of.
P: A ploy that most of the time just gives cleave doesn't feel all that great, but the spike of an extra glory might make this playable. I think extra dice would almost always be superior for these guys though. Fish them crits.
D: Ug, Don't like. If you could react after your attack roll, maybe. At least it’s not spent glory, but still.
Velmorn living that dad life, tripping over your kids’ toys.
P: Being able to get more command tokens in the power step might be important for these guys but I don't think you take this card for the push if we find the command token is overkill.
D: Gating it behind a successful attack action is a little wonky on timing. Early in R1, those are going to be hard to come by.
D: I think this feels like a 10th or 11th gambit in champs. There's some builds and gambits that will want to spend that Command counter and replenishing is nice.
P: Similar to fathers pride this effect will either be important or not useful enough to warrant taking. This is probably better than fathers pride though since you have more control of when to play it
D: I like it, can even give your boss the option to delve for a little extra protection early, then camp till the last power step of the round and flip back to hold.
Hugh gon’ hew.
P: This is very solid. These do over effects have always been solid and having a modular effect to get +1 dice when you need it feels very strong
D: Yes! Very nice! Increases the value of the "give a command token" gambits too.
This is actually Thain getting bored to sleep by a long Dad rant.
P: Raise effects are usually good. This is more balanced since it requires a token in combination with your leader being alive. Still very good and I don't see why you wouldn't bring this kind of effect
D: A more limited Partial Res but these are historically strong includes. At least you can use it on Jedran too.
P: Heal two is nice but on three wound fighters it can be tricky to use since they have to be at one wound to be healed. I think it might make sense to use this in combination with the raise effects in the warband.
D: Feels like something to go with the resurrection effects. I think the wording is such that you could still do this if someone is on one damage. Bummer it’s restricted to Grave Guard.
Oh, I didn’t see you there, giant skelly-man!
P: I love this design. Any of these effects will be disruptive, but making your opponent choose those bad things for their fighter is such a psychological blow. I think this card will mess up a lot of people.
D: Probably good enough to stick with. They're all strong effects, but kind of at different times. The move token isn’t as big a deal as it used to be, but still not insignificant.
P: + 2 move ploys have always been solid for aggro bands so this is probably going to see a decent amount of play.
D: Poor Jedran. Too thicc for this.
P: Meh. We have seen this kind of ploy many times before and they rarely make the cut. If ping is a lot more important this season you maybe consider this but since it only hits adjacent attacks it feels like it won't be quite good enough.
D: Very limited. Situationally fine.
Upgrades
P: What an interesting idea. A small accuracy boost with ensnare with the ability to fish for crits. I'm intrigued but I'm not really sure it's actually all that good.
D: Uh, weird. I think there’s much better accuracy boosts in championship format available. Sometimes it's gonna be "I need a kill or nothing", but a re-roll purely for crit fishing is only a 1/6 chance, while ensnare is fairly situational.
P: So a soundless step where you have to push towards a friendly fighter? We have seen the crab in soulraid to work with a similar push so I think this will be solid but it is definitely going to require a lot of forethought.
D: That's a weird push effect. A more restricted Soundless Step. Couldn’t it have just been a Soundless Step clone?
P:+1 defense on block fighters can be quite good but it being restricted to the small guys makes this less useful. I'm not sure it really needed the leader alive restriction on top of the fighter restriction as well.
D: Yeah, seems good. High defense is probably particularly attractive if they're vulnerable from being raised.
P: There will be times where this might be useful but I think getting staggered is a pretty steep cost for a warband that doesn't have a built in on fighter card revive mechanic.
D: This is much better than their base attack actions, and helps with inspire with the rerolls and because Range 2 is easier to support.
P: What an awful punishment for missing an attack! I think this will end up deterring many attacks outright. No restrictions on this is also quite good.
D: Ooo, fun effect! This puts extra pressure on decision making for early attacks in a given round.
D: No effect if they can delay till the last activation though I guess, so placement is important.
P: Extra great strength for half the warband. Seems good.
D: Argh, restricted to Grave Guard, boooo!
P: Usually a push reaction like this would be an auto include for me, but I think it may actually end up pretty hard to use. Still, multi pushes are strong so this one is almost certainly worth a try to see how it plays..
D: It feels like a lot of these are pretty situational. Sometimes situationally great, but still situational.
P: This could be annoying... A counter charge that forces a target change could be game changing. Good thing this one is restricted to one fighter
D: That's a big push, and redirecting is very rare. Even better if you can find a way to stack defense on Jedran to make him tankier. This card may not make the cut, though. It’s a dead card if either of these guys goes down.
P: Rerolls are solid accuracy boosts. I would prefer+dice for these guys but this is still worth a spot if you don't have enough +dice.
D: Basically the same as an extra dice. But what the hell, poor Jed.
P: This is... Okay? I feel like the king gets a lot from being inspired so getting one revive a round at the cost of being inspired feels pretty bad. Maybe it will play better than it looks with the +1 dice bonus but overall feels fairly poor.
D: What a weird card. If inspired Velmorn is in a dangerous spot, you may forgo his post activation reaction to keep him at 2 block.
Summary
Oof, that crit fishing. Cursed Weapons (Boarding Pike, Cutlass, Boarding Axe, get outta here Musket) may be your friends for getting some inspires off. Some cool tricks revolving around those Command tokens, though. You may be able to capitalize off their hold objective cards in faction to build some nice flex.