Hello Spent Glory fans – today I’m excited to announce that Sleek’s Bowl and I are uniting under a shared banner. From here on, the location you’ll find Sleek’s articles is changing – he will no longer be posting on his own page and instead will have his articles hosted here on SpentGlory.com – Mike and I are friends with a lot of content overlap, so why not combine our efforts and make this the best page it can be? If you want to see the content I’ve copied over for your reading here, look for the Sleek’s Bowl tag on any articles, or click that there link to see the full list. Sleek wants to thank his loyal readers and subscribers, and he invites you to check out his newest offering below as we celebrate this exciting merge: read below for “Blackpowder Nonsense”

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Early on in this game a friend of mine loved playing Ogres. He had Hrothgorn and Blackpowder. He enjoyed playing them and I enjoyed playing Stormcast of any kind. Of course I would. I am a goody-two-shoes who wants nothing more than to beat you and say, “This is right.

However, I have to say I was a bit enamored by the fact GW made a Pirate Ogre with a Parrot. Literally a Parrot, like “Polly wants a cracker” and “wind in your sails” Parrot. And wait the Parrot inspires to three dodge with grievous and move tech. I didn’t want to admit it, but I loved Shreek. Oh, and by the way, they come with a monkey too. A monkey. A tree swinging, coconut throwing, poop flinging monkey. Plus, two green humanoids that Blackpowder can eat as snacks. For those that don’t understand the massive creativity that went into this warband, I feel bad for you. I mean, not real bad, because you are probably a Stormcast player who has no imagination and only likes playing warriors that can be recycled, but a little bad. But you see I had a conundrum. My friend loved playing them and I was “The Stormcast Guy”. I mean I author under the Pseudonym Sleeksbowl. If that doesn’t tell you I am a fan boy than I don’t know what will. But something changed…

First, my friend moved on to many other warbands. I felt that Blackpowder was open to be played.
Second, I happen to win them at LVO. It was what I always dreamed of. Now embarks my adventure into destruction. I have theory crafted three decks. Well actually four, but I play tested one and decided
to eat it like a Gnoblar. The second thing I have done is committed to taking them to a Rivals tournament. This
tournament I will be using their terrible faction deck. I expect nothing other than to say ridiculous Parrot sayings while my opponent kills me. The third thing I will do is take them to a Nemesis tournament. All of this will happen in a span of 30 days. And all of these articles will be put on the Spent Glory blog to celebrate our new partnership. Now straight to the Nemesis Deck Building Ideas.

Frostpowder

It’s no secret that Force of Frost is one of the most powerful decks around. The beauty of the deck is that, while it does have some delicious magic present, it actually performs quite well as a pairing for non-magic warbands. The deck provides Blackpowder increased defense, which the whole warband is short on. Ice armor, frozen heart and frostwyrm cloak are wonderful defensive upgrades and boy howdy do the pirates need those. The gnoblars start on one dodge with three move and two wounds. That’s bad. Shreek and Mange are not much better at 2 wounds and 2 dodge (though they inspire to three dodge). And then the kicker is, despite the extra large pizza plate on his belly, Blackpowder is on only one block. Ice armor bringing him to two block and Frozen Heart bringing him to 7 wounds significantly adds to his durability. While the minions can make use of Frostwyrm cloak or Frozen Heart to add to their durability. There are some nice gambits to help score objectives and some control pieces in time freeze and frozen to the spot. Speaking of objectives, quite a few are close to efficient with what Blackpowder is doing.

Enough talk, here is the deck list:

Powder and Poison

The next deck is a pairing with Toxic Terrors. This solves another of Blackpowder’s many problems… maneuverability. I don’t mean flat out speed. If I wanted Blackpoweder and friends to charge across the board like living missiles (card reference absolutely intended), I would pair them with Breakneck Slaughter. But I don’t because it would be their own necks that break as they are relatively fragile. What I mean is board control. If I can prevent a few charges on the Gnoblars or force inefficient play using the poisons for my opponent, I can level the playing field with my lame fighters before they inspire. Of course, I am speaking of all the usual suspects here. Freezing Venom, Ill Prepared, Bleeding Out and Spit Venom are fabulous for controlling the board and leveling the playing field.

The objectives are very reliant on Blackpowder doing work. But let’s be honest, if he isn’t doing work then who is? Here is a hint: it’s not Kagey. This deck also adds upgrades that increase durability so long as the poisons are on the fighters. This is always a gamble because it’s a two card combo and Force of Frost accomplishes the durability job easier and cleaner. But I will have to practice it to see how often these combos arise and are relevant. My guess is not often.

Anyway, here is the list for Powder and Poison:

Tortuga

Finally, there is the deck I am calling Tortuga (a reference to Pirates of the Caribbean and the fortified Island of the pirates. Also Spanish for turtle. More on that later. Actually, that’s quite enough and no more on that later). It is a Fearsome Fortress pairing that Skyler of WTH helped me devise. The primary problem this pairing solves is that Blackpowder’s rivals objective deck is le garbage. That’s French for not very good. Fearsome Fortress provides some great scoring opportunities with their movement tricks and their size of warband to help bring on the glory. The objectives also coincide with some of their own to make a solid objective pairing. Now the main problem with this pairing is it doesn’t solve any of their stat issues. But the deck looks great and I think it will score smoothly:

Finally

It should be noted that I paired them first with Beastbound Assault. After about 10 trial runs I realized that it didn’t make Blackpowder any better and tossed it. If someone else has better luck with that Nemesis pairing let me know! My first event will be a Rivals tournament on February 25th. It will be a very laid back environment and a Round Robin set up. This should give me some good games to run through the deck and find my most hated cards. I will update here on Spent Glory when I finish!