Gladiaterrors, as written by Fishmode – Gryselle’s Arenai with Toxic Terrors in Nemesis
Hey gang. Thomas, Mike and I are all fans of Gryselle’s Arenai, and word on the street is that they’re “not good”. Not even Mid! Just, like, bad. We disagree (at least in Nemesis) and have set out to prove the haters wrong. Coming into this experiment I personally was 8-2 with them, and decided to lean into Toxic Terrors for this series as we each work to find how different pairings can find success for the Sisters of Slaughter. I had only played Toxic Terrors two or three times (and always with other warbands), so while I felt relatively competent with the warband itself I was in uncharted territory for the Rivals deck pairing. Below is my decklist for Gladiaterrors v.1.0 followed by some commentary about how I composed it. If you’re into this kind of stuff, I have plenty more incoherent rambling over at https://spentglory.com/
This post is part of the Sleek’s Bowl Series, where we cover off-meta and goofy pairings in an effort to bring the lesser-player warbands into the mix. To read more like this, click here!
Please Note, this 1.0 deck was not the final version, and I will explain in a following article how playtesting went, and what tweaks I made and why. If you would like the see the “final” deck, the link and photo are below:
++NEW DECK LINK++ Gladiaterrors v.2.0
Let’s open with my general deckbuilding thoughts as I went about constructing the original version of this deck. I started with what I knew, the General Arenai cards. As a disclaimer, most of my understanding of the warband comes from either Rivals or a Nemesis pairing with Tooth and Claw. As Sleeksbowl is the team expert with TnC, we decided to let him roll with the Tooth and Applause pairing and so some of my take may be stale for Toxic Terrors. Regardless, here’s what I went into the experiment with:
Flourishes: Plus damage and scything are both very rare effects in Nemesis and in a deck that rewards kills and multiple attacks, especially with the leader, both Fatal Flouring and Spinning Flourish are worth including. There’s an argument to also include Daring Flourish, but I’m hesitant to miss and then be a sitting duck with only one dodge. I have not had great success with executioner’s flourish – grievous is OK if you’re rolling 3+ dice but you may not have a wounded target when you need it (or they might not need the grievous to finish them off). Since I am only taking 2 or 3 flourishes, I can ignore any upgrade or Objective that references them since I won’t have enough to make them worth it (and those cards are of questionable worth even in Rivals).
Combo: What about the follow-up upgrades? Probably just pick one or two. If you’re only taking one, Lacerating Blow is the best overall damage output and accuracy. Range two is nice though, especially on Gryselle since she probably killed her first target, so which of the others do you go for? I avoid Kruiplash since I generally feel like cleave is better than ensnare, and so favor Piercing Strike myself for my range 2 option. I took two follow ups because it helps with damage output and scoring Storm of Blades (as well as carve a path in TT). I didn’t feel as though I had room for a third, but you could potentially drop something like Star Performer to make space.
Moment of rapture is good. The better effect is heal 2 Gryselle, but if you do have Star Performer in hand you can inspire somebody who hasn’t charged or it’s the end of the round. It also is a bit of an insurance policy for Exult in Violence in case I only have 1 surviving inspired fighter near the end of the round (which happens much more than I would like)
Paean of Slaughter has been in all my lists but if you don’t get it in round 1 it feels less good, and if you’re looking to make cuts I think that’s fair to drop. It feels a little safer to me than Daring Flourish because you don’t retain minus defense if you miss, but does require your leader alive, and she does go down in round 2 sometimes.
End Phase borderline options: Warrior Faithful – I have struggled to score in the past. If you draw it in the first round, you have five fighters and need to rely on them kindly ending adjacent to your uncharged fighter (requires a whiff with no drive back) or they kindly kill one of your fighters who hasn’t charged yet. Most of the time I have a fighter left over who doesn’t satisfy the condition and I get bummed. It’s an easy round 2 score, sure, but round 3 is often Gryselle killing stuff and sometimes that means you either just want to give her move tokens (doesn’t score) or you have a fighter left but would rather not charge them to get more use out of Gryselle. You can include it but it’s pretty hard for only one glory in certain situations. Bloody Show was excluded from my first deck because it felt too difficult to score early – it incentivizes spreading the pain instead of focusing fighters down which you need to do early against elite warbands (and can’t realistically score against some hordes)
Borderline Upgrades: Devotee of the Blade is situationally great but I have often felt like I would rather have had more mobility or accuracy instead. I also had temptations to include Devotee of Slaughter (keeps the Thrialla alive a little longer) but ended up leaving it out. Thomas and Mike both disagree with me on this take, so your mileage may vary!
Arenai with TT thoughts:
So now that I had gotten my choices for the Arenai half of the deck out of the way, I had to make some decisions about Toxic Terrors. The first thing you need to do when working in a new Rivals deck pairing is to decide how much of “the package” you’re going to bring along. I already decided to ignore most of the Flourish package from the Arenai deck, so I have room for Poison gambits and/or Upgrades from this deck should I want to go that direction. After my initial assessment, I decided to take four poison upgrades and three poison gambits, and toss away any scoring that depended on poison gambits. The only poison gambits I feel are worth taking are Ill Prepared, Freezing Venom, and Spit Venom. So the objective cards have to allow for poison upgrades rather than persistent poisons, as I simply won’t have enough to reliably score those cards.
On that note, it might seem tempting to take Deluge of Toxins with the Arenai since they have so many persisting gambits in the form of Flourishes, but I think it is still a trap card. You need two persisting poisons or three gambits persisting in the same power step – if you kill your target (or even damage them in some cases), or succeed in a flourished attack, those go away. In order to score the card, you basically want to play your cards and then not use them, or you’re hoping to miss your attack. I don’t like to play tug of war with myself. To score this card and it also is dependent on you actually having three persisting gambits in hand, which you absolutely cannot guarantee (unless you do some cool stuff with Venombite Weapons and/or Poisonmaster). I have never felt this card to be worth the risk. Avoiding this card also makes you feel less like you have to fit in 3+ Flourishes or Mistress of the Bladestorm, and you have more room for things that are actually useful.
An additional thought on a popular Poison Gambit – Choking Venom also feels like it is a trap since it is a persisting poison, but only until you hit, and you are the affected fighter and not the target. It doesn’t help with many of the effects/objectives in the deck since your target is not affected by the persisting poison/gambit. Still better than Bleeding Out and Insect Swarm probably in most matchups though, so if you felt like you needed another Poison gambit this would be my next choice.
I actually leaned most into the non-poison cards like Keep the Forest at Bay, No Safe Ground, and Sneaky Weasel so I can get the positioning I need to let Gryselle show us why they’re called Artist’s Blades. No safe ground is a Distraction with conditions and for that reason it’s good, but I don’t often get the best use out of it. I feel like too often the thing I want pushed is on an objective, but the stagger is nice in any case. A lot of my round threes end up being just Gryselle one-shotting stuff so if I can drop a couple of pushes on her it will feel more efficient. Sneaky Weasel is great for that, and while Wicked Hunter requires the poison gambits (and I didn’t take a ton) in the right situation it is a great Gryselle surfboard. It also helps you leverage Callous.
Upgrades: Let’s look at Callous. In my mind this is the keystone for Nemesis with TT, and you absolutely want to include this. In order to maximize its potential and get +1 damage though, you need to package alongside it to make it work. You can either have the target affected by persisting Poison Gambits, or have the owner of the Upgrade have 2 or more Poison Upgrades (Callous itself counts as one of these two). The easiest way to unlock the effect (and the one that lasts for longer) is to have another poison upgrade on the fighter. The odds of having Callous and another Poison upgrade at the same time needs to be reliably high, and if you have already applied a Poison Upgrade to someone not named Gryselle and then draw into Callous you will be sad. I would look to include at least 3 poison upgrades in addition to Callous to maximize your odds. The three I chose were Venombite Weapons, Wicked Hunter, and Venombite Shank.
I took Venombite Shank since it’s mega accurate (and can go on my second fighter if needed since I took capable poisoners) and combined with callous becomes two damage so it’s not bad. An extra tasty side effect is in the instances where you apply it to Kalexis, the Silvered Blur, she will be rolling 4 attack dice since the weapon is 4 smash innately. That is an automatic inspire!
As discussed before, Wicked Hunter helps me scoot around after people to leverage more attacks (Cowabuga!) and the combo with Callous is a nice boost, even if I don’t have the Poison Gambits in hand at the time.
Honestly my use of Venombite Weapons was ‘make callous good’ and ‘allow me to have two fighters with poison upgrades for scoring Capable Poisoners’. The cycling Spit Venom and Freezing Venom is just gravy on top – but after some playtesting I think Capable Poisoners is too much to ask (and possibly so is Venom-Gorged). If you lean into the Poison Upgrades and having them on multiple fighters, Dual Contamination is an option, but I often find that the 2 wounders die too early and too often to hit this in the Arenai Nemesis pairing.
Other Poison Upgrades: Leave Blighted Aura at home – sure minus damage is nice, but the attacker needs to be affected by a poison. You only have three good ones, two of which are there to make it harder for your opponent to even attack you. Really this is an upgrade that will only get use if the target is hit with spit venom, and you’re playing that card before your activation in order to kill the target, yeah? Realistically you will never see the benefit of Blighted Aura. It is a poison upgrade but I would consider a different one that you will maybe get the benefit of in some way. Blighted Touch has the same idea behind it but is substantially worse – who says my opponent will even be using Ensnare? Again they’re unlikely to be affected by the Poison while attacking me as well. Grim Trophies is pretty bad as it really doesn’t do anything but Callous boost. Poisonwarp Metalith is pretty bad too since you have to use an action to pull them closer, and the best part of both Ill-Prepared and Freezing Venom will be negated by yanking them closer to you. Arguably you could opt for Poisonmaster if you wanted, since it could potentially let you draw some more cards, but I feel like more often than not it will be a dead effect with only three Poison Gambits in my deck.
Taking Advantage is a bit of a greedy choice, especially in Round 1, but can work pretty easily depending on the matchup. You need some of your suicide chargers to live though, so be smart! Pairs nicely with Warrior-Faithful and Har Kuron Hurricane if you’re taking those.
Sorry for a bit of a ramble, but that was how the Gladiaterrors version 1 was assembled. The plan was to get into enemy territory, apply a poison upgrade on Gryselle and one other fighter, and slit some throats while standing on objectives. No problem, right? Tune in next time to see how that goes for the Evil Elves.
Welcome back to Sleeksbowl – I’m your guest host Fishmode, Taking Advantage. Last time, we talked about how I built the Gladiaterrors version 1 deck. Now let’s get down to the grim work of Mass Poisoning, and see just how many bodies we can pile up.
Test games:
Game 1: Andrew’s Ironsoul’s Condemnors with Tooth and Claw (Won 21-9)
This game went well for me, knowing he would be coming in hot made scoring Taking Advantage quite easy – charging behind his fighters and into his territory. I hit early and often, and while he did some serious damage back in the end he wasn’t able to win the leader’s duel in round 3. Gryselle’s surfboard let her ride right back in to counter some knockback and distractions he used to attempt to keep me out of the fight. Blood Sigil, Unquenchable Fervor, and Moment of Rapture were a godsend and Gryselle cleaned up at her leisure.
Game 2: John’s Skabbik’s Plaguepack with Beastbound Assault (Won 17-7)
John immediately opened with a scything charge with Rabidius into two of my frontline two wounders which had me sweating. Fortunately he didn’t kill either of them, and I ran past the threat to score Har Kuron Hurricane. He almost countered me with the Book of Woe, but pinged all the wrong fighters so nobody died and I kept three alive in his territory for scoring. I was later able to set up a great three-fighter scything attack with Gryselle, killing two, but she was taken down shortly thereafter and I was in a tight spot heading into round 3. Kalexis is a hero though, and with four upgrades and auto-inspiring in round 3, she was able to ride the surfboard and throw some great damage out, using Callous + Venombite shank on smaller guys, and her base 2 damage boosted to 3 with Callous to kill larger ones. I ran away with in in round three and he was tabled by the end, though some better than average defense dice helped me weather the early storm from his aggro plan.
Game 3: Brian’s Morgok’s Krushas with Tooth and Claw (Conceded after Round 1 while down 1-7)
This was a rough start, and we were playing a best of three for our league semifinals. Dice do be dice, and he was able to take out three fighters early while I missed three of my five attacks in round 1. With Gryselle, Retaria, and Thrialla all down and only modest damage on ‘Ardskull while Morgok was on my Venom Gorged target objective, I was in big trouble. After I drew a solid 5 upgrades to open Round 2 while having only 1 glory (which I had already spent), I knew it was a lost cause and scooped so we could finish our best of three before store closing.
Game 4: Brian’s Morgok’s Krushas with Tooth and Claw (Lost on tiebreakers, 12-12)
This game started out pretty rough for me too, but with the semifinals on the line I gutted it out and almost managed to claw back the win. I had the scything flourish in hand early and got greedy, attempting to set up a scythe with gryselle against all three fighters. Unfortunately Brian had Eager Advance, so he was able to reach Gryselle when I thought he couldn’t (I was planning to use Keep the Forest at Bay to make my charge), whacking her for three, breaking up the scythe pile, knocking her back, and blocking my charge lane. Bummer. I scrapped that plan and tried to grievous him into a lethal but failed the attack, and Thugg killed her right after. I was able to score Taking Advantage and Har Kuron Hurricane though thanks to Ill Prepared, so I was still in it. As the game wore on, he had too much defensive and healing tech for me to cut through so many 5 wound fighters, and he won with only Thugg surviving with 1 wound remaining, but on an objective. I again got greedy with the scything flourish instead of playing smart and running away to score Venom Gorged in round 2, which would almost certainly have won me the game. Lessons learned, and I’m quite tempted to drop both Venom Gorged and Capable Poisoners (or at least focus on that rather than playing too risky for scythes).
Deck Tweaking
Having run this deck now across four matches, It was time to re-evaluate my card choices with some evidence in hand. Having failed in all four games to score either Venom-Gorged or Capable Poisoners, I was going to either need more poison upgrades to help make it happen, or give up on them and move to new Objective cards. I opted to drop those Objectives seeing as I didn’t particularly like the remaining Poison Upgrades as described in the into of this piece, and even if I had them in hand they wouldn’t be applied to fighters without any glory, which would be harder to score with my Objective cards tied to Upgrades. Catch-22. I elected to give up on these and look for other End Phase Objectives, settling on Warrior-Faithful and Bloody Show. This dropped my glory ceiling by 1, but seeing as I wasn’t getting any of those 4 glory so far, It was probably a net gain. I described earlier how I didn’t like either of these objectives on their face because of how difficult they were to score in round 1, but in honestly so were the two I replaced here. Round 2 onward Warrior-Faithful is effectively an auto score since I just need to move or charge everybody which I was doing anyway. Bloody Show might be harder depending on the matchup but hopefully by round 3 it will be doable, but time will tell. Notably in all 4 of my previous games I would have scored it by round 3 (and in my Rivals games and Tooth and Claw games it’s been relatively reliable for me)
I made no changes to the Upgrade deck. I flirted with the idea of dropping a poison upgrade (probably Venombite weapons) since I didn’t need them for Objective scoring as much anymore, but opted not to swap any out. I still wanted them for Callous damage boosting and if I only had three total, finding a way to get Callous and one other on Gryselle could be low odds. If I did end up swapping I would go for Devotee of the Blade of Devotee of Slaughter, but that will be a decision for later. In Gambits I made only one change. I waffled again on Paean of Slaughter vs Daring Flourish, and was quite hesitant since I really dislike minus defense if you miss. Sure, I could buffer against it by having a fighter with combo make the flourish attack. I had previously thought that Paean worked for all attacks in an activation but after talking with the crew it ends up that that would only be true for scything during Spinning Flourish – the reaction for Follow-Up/Combo happens after your activation so it doesn’t have the same staying power. Additionally, Gryselle has died early a few times in my prior test games and I can’t play Paean of Slaughter without her.
++NEW DECK LINK++ Gladiaterrors v.2.0
Game 5: Brian’s Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers with Beastbound Assault (Lost 12-13)
This was a very back and forth game, that to my incredible frustration I lost by making a few misplays in the last couple activations. Brian is a savvy opponent and I don’t want to take anything away from him, but this is twice in a row I lost a game I should have won. We begin with a familiar theme – I missed five straight attacks in round 1, had scored no glory, and was on the back foot headed into round 2. With some incredible luck, despite losing the rolloff, I survived with Gryselle on a Crit defense and was able to immediately thereafter heal her with Moment of Rapture. During round 2 I scored surges, drew into surges, and just exploded from 0 glory to 9 by the end of the round, cycling poisons the whole way. Brian had his share of bad dice luck this round, and things were looking very good for me headed into round 3. In the end, I lost because I played Unquenchable Fervor and promptly forgot it was in play, allowing him to kill the Aegis when she should have survived on one wound. I then later played Daring Flourish, promptly forgot I had, and didn’t roll the extra dice (also foolishly targeting the wrong fighter). If any of these three mistakes had played differently, I would have had a two glory swing and won the game by 1. It didn’t help matters that Quiv sat in the corner and never gained any move or charge tokens all game, preventing me from scoring In Praise of Khaine. Live and learn I suppose, but it was rough to beat myself on yet another Big Boy matchup, which just may not be the right place for these Gladiaterrors to shine. I do believe the 2.0 deck is smoother and that with more Toxic Terrors practice I can probably pull it off. Maybe next time I’ll hit before my sixth attack!
Arena Mortis Game – Toxic Gryselle against Relic Lady Harrow, Tooth and Claw Brydget, and Beastbound Sarrakkar Blackwing (won 10-10-9-4 on tiebreakers)
I won’t spend a ton of time here since it’s not super meta-relevant, but I did play a four-player Arena Mortis with this deck making no substitutions. I was able to win despite all three of the other decks being built specifically with Arena Mortis in mind (the Relic deck with things like Rebound, Army of One, etc). Being able to react to my own declare attack step by going on guard, then push onto the token afterward with either Sneaky Weasel or Wicked Hunter was really nice. This game (as many Arena Mortis games are) was all over the place and a ton of fun. I can’t pretend this transfers to Nemesis reliably, but it was reassuring that the deck can function if you Voltron Gryselle, even against other Voltron candidates, despite below average attack dice for me this game. Also, if you haven’t lately, give Arena Mortis another go. Disclaimer! This message only for people who enjoy laughing with their friends and having fun.
Game 6: Brian’s Domitan’s Stormcoven with Seismic Shock (Conceded Round 1 down 1-8)
There isn’t a ton to say here, I lost too fast to even take a photo. I missed two early attacks, then got greedy with a spinning flourish + deadly flourish attack with Gryselle. Had I hit (and I did have supports, and had Spit Venom a wounded Leona down to 1 dodge), I could have killed two of his three fighters in my third activation. Instead, I missed twice and took two damage on Gryselle, who died thereafter. To make things worse, I failed every defense roll and he never failed a spell cast. Ends up Ill Prepared is great for preventing attacks, but when he has a deck full of pings there’s a little less it can do. This one was a bummer because I gambled and lost (sensing a theme here, anyone?), though had I played it safer I honestly think he would have just overwhelmed me with spells. If I had to do it over again, I would still go big or go home. Had a couple things gone the other way I would be writing this segment glorifying my 20-3 victory and calling myself a genius, but you know, fair’s fair. Me dum-dum.
Game 7: Vassal game against an anonymous player who was testing their deck for the World Championships in Atlanta (lost 7-17)
Out of respect for the player and to prevent tipping their hand in advance of the World Finals, I’ve anonymized this report. This ended up being less of a close game than the final score would indicate since I got tabled in the end of round 2, but it was relatively close until then (and had a chance to table him had one or two dice rolls gone my way). I do carry my fair share of the blame though, since I made a few less than ideal target priority choices, damaging a fighter but not killing them (in part because I forgot to play Fatal Flourish), and later in the game used one of my surfboard pushes in a pretty boneheaded direction. In round 1, he wisely stayed bottled up to prevent Taking Advantage, and killed an inspired fighter to block Exult in Violence. The thing that really busted my game though was an intelligent power card play that prevented the use of some cards on my end that would have allowed Gryselle to scythe into a pack of three fighters with a reroll while inspired and equipped with a poison, so I could have theoretically grabbed 2-3 kills and scored Carve a Path and Mass Poisoning in one stroke. Instead she ate an attack and went down to a ping right after, and that was that. A nice power card also saved the enemy leader later in the game, so I was on the back foot. I made the most of it and actually was in a position to table him instead with Raetaria, but he had an upgrade that is pretty potent against Arenai, and I was forced to make a bad choice, gambled, and lost. Still feeling decent about the deck, but against a literal World-Class opponent with a Worlds optimized deck, and being countered by some specific-matchup-great cards, the writing was on the wall. I’ve now lost 5 straight (including every one after deck adjustments), but I believe I could have won any of them if a few things had gone differently. Ever the optimist, that Fishmode.
Test games out of the way, I am now officially 2-5 with this pairing (if you exclude Arena Mortis). What happened?! I swear I had the Arenai under control. I was 8-2 and had full command of what went down on the tabletop. Then I tried this Toxic Terrors thing and got cute and greedy, both in excessive amounts. I stand by the deck’s potential, and the wearband’s in general, but this experiment isn’t looking good on my end. With that said, nothing better to do than enter a four round Nemesis tournament with absolutely no adjustments to the deck. What will happen? Does Fishmode prove to the world that A) he knows a thing or two about Underworlds and B) that Gladiaterrors has a real shot? Or does the world prove to Fishmode that A) No he doesn’t and B) No they don’t? Tune in next time…
SUPERIORITY CONFIRMED – Gladiaterrors Tourney Report
Having lost 5 straight with Gryselle’s Arenai and Toxic Terrors, the best possible plan of action was to bring them to a Nemesis Event and see if they couldn’t keep up at our quarterly tournament. Surely things will work out for me this time! Nobody’s heard of the Gambler’s Fallacy ’round these parts, lemme tell you. ONWARD!
The event was a best of 1, four round event. Chances to suprise people with some Toxic tricks, but also to be defeated by bad dice (or win because of them!). Several of the people in this event have used the Gladiaterrors as their whipping boys (girls?) these past few weeks, so my tricks and surprises might not go as far, but who am I to give up on a commitment to Make Arenai Great Again? The deck has not changed at all since the V2.0 shared last article (https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,GA4,GA5,GA7,GA8,GA10,GA11,GA15,GA19,GA21,GA22,GA23,GA28,GA30,GA31,GA32,TT2,TT8,TT9,TT10,TT15,TT17,TT19,TT20,TT21,TT25,TT29,TT30,TT31,TT32,GA3,GA12,GA13&format=nemesis). IF you would like a refresher on how it has played so far, and how I built it, check out the previous two entries I authored for this series. Or read Saxthom and Sleeksbowl’s more thoughtful and rational discourse on how these duelists are supposed to work, since I might not actually have this all figured out so good.
Game 1: Josh’s Steelheart’s Champions with Daring Delvers (Win 16-8)
This game went really well for me, as I was able to score Taking Advantage almost immediately. With only three enemies to worry about, and their desire to get over the line for Delvers purposes, it was trivial to put two of mine over and grab 2 surge glory that way. I had conveniently left Steelheart himself Ill Prepared, so I could focus on the other two for round 1. I didn’t manage to bring down Obryn in round 1, who was spared with an extra wound upgrade, but Brightshield did me a solid and killed Kalexys rather than Thrialla, which I chalk up to Josh never having faced the Arenai before. In Round two things got out of hand in my favor – Obryn went down immediately (scoring me two glory for being a Large fighter), and I was able to one-shot Steelheart with Gryselle by getting the plus damage from both Grievous and Paragon of the Arena. Josh did his best to run Brightshield from me and get some Exploration scores, but Surfboard Gryselle coupled with Keep the Forest at Bay and No Safe Ground ended that dream for her early and we finished the game cycling cards. A strong showing for Gladiaterrors and I was pleased to see I had learned a few Elites lessons from my prior games. Steelheart’s aren’t the monsters that the Krushas are, though.
Game 2: John’s Sons of Velmorn (with updated Command Counters rule) paired with Tooth and Claw (Win 19-13)
This game was pretty tight throughout the first few rounds. The new Velmorn Command Counter mechanic (wherein they receive one at the start of each round without the need for the King to activate) did come into play early and often with multiple supports being successes, but to my great fortune John couldn’t figure out how to roll a crit for much of the game so inspiration was hard to come by. I set out cutting down Grave Guard where I could and we traded fighters for the first two rounds. The Crown’s Curse allowed Thain Fourth-and-Last to return to the battlefield twice, and Praetorian forced Gryselle into a weird spot to try and prevent some intercession in round 3, but the dice worked out in my favor (and Paragon of the Arena remains a Five-Star Upgrade). John did a good job rolling with the punches and scoring his own objectives, but Gryselle on guard with a timely Moment of Rapture heal meant that she was able to keep swinging and keep me in the lead. Honestly I got away with this one as John tied for third across the tournament and gave every player he faced some serious trouble.
Game 3: Andrew’s Hexbane’s Hunters with Tooth and Claw (Lose 11-12)
Things started out marvelously for me in this game. Andrew won the roll off and elected to go first, charging Brydget at Retaria the Entangler and whiffing despite a dog being nearby. One Keep the Forest at Bay later, Retaria was in charge range of a previously safe Hexbane, and one fatal flourish later, he was a dead witch hunter. Activation one assassination! Hunt my Witch Elves now! Andrew has gotten quite competent with Hexbane in the past couple months, so he was able to make the best of a bad situation, but I was able to whittle him down to Pock and a dog by midway through round 2. I misplayed and assumed I would score In Praise of Khaine, but failed to do so as the dog has only a move token and not a charge. Bummer. To add to my woes, I unfortunately missed 6 straight attacks to close the game out, and he managed to score Proof of Guilt and two in my territory while running away from a tooled up Gryselle. Had I hit any one of those six attacks, I would have won this game, but instead I lost by 1 to the eventual undefeated tournament winner. I can’t really complain about my dice going cold after 2.5 games of pretty good luck though! On to the consolation match.
Game 4: Damian’s Crimson Court with Tooth and Claw (Win 20-11)
Damian is one of those cunning Canadians who keeps stealing our glass, and despite knowing him for years and playing in the same tournaments multiple times, this was actually the first game we had ever played into one another. Knowing there was an off chance for one of us to still win the event if Andrew lost his last match and we had the best differential, I was obligated to beat Damian if only to prevent yet another trophy heist. The problem with this plan is that he’s a World Class player (with a Golden Ticket to Worlds coming up), playing a strong warband with the goal to invade my side.
I put pretty much everything I had round 1 into divebombing Ennias so that I could score Superiority Confirmed. Unfortunately, I missed one attack and then he played a heal, so I was only able to leave him vulnerable at the end of the round. I did win the roll off to go first in round 2, killed him immediately, and then quickly dispatched Gorath thereafter. He had some pretty gnarly upgrades on Vellas and Duvalle headed into round 3, but I managed to get the kills I needed and came out on top. Interestingly I even ended up scoring Taking Advantage in the last End Phase, as we both had the same number of fighters in his territory (which was zero. But the card doesn’t say ‘at least one’, and it’s been confirmed that zero is a number). The final score looks pretty lopsided in my favor, but I will admit it should have been much tighter and might even have gone the other way if I didn’t keep rolling crit defenses. Significantly contributing to my slaughter was a timely crit defense on Traxya the Aegis (who auto inspires round 3), stopping a big 5 glory play out of Prince Duvalle and slapping two ping damage back into his face to leave him vulnerable. Atta girl! I knew you’d amount to something eventually!
Andrew did win his final game, so I wasn’t able to leapfrog him into first place, but ultimately that’s a good thing. You never want to win a tournament you hosted, organized, and TO’d. I mean, you do, but, you know. Plus it’s nice to see Andrew really take to Hexbane’s and get the most out of them in such a short time, and grab a well deserved glass trophy to go with his other (sadly broken) one.
The Deck in Review
With a second place finish under my belt (and with the highest glory total, and glory differential) I’m feeling a little more justified in sticking to my guns with this one. Obviously the deck has the potential to fall flat early if I miss some attacks, but I think that’s an Arenai problem and not anything I can do a ton about. I haven’t felt the need to build in more defense/wounds etc, which could offset that a bit, but would come at the expense of offensive output and the jury’s still out on whether that would be worthwhile. I do, however, need to bring this pairing to the Thunderdome against my cohosts, so while I’m done terrorizing my local scene for a while, I will still need to assess for any changes lest I embarrass myself further.
Reflecting on the tournament, one of the first things I noticed was that all day long I never even drew Paean of Slaughter. I was wondering if it got wedged in the box somewhere and honestly I didn’t miss it, which is a relief because I actually did cut it after all and just forgot! Makes me feel better about that decision I suppose. That said, it might have really helped hit one of those 6 failed attacks against Hexbane that would have won me the tournament, so…
Otherwise I think I generally had a pretty tight gameplan. I wouldn’t change my objectives at this point, and eschewing the need to care about positioning as much or objective tokens has been pretty freeing to allow me to chase down prey wherever it hides. I definitely still have issues with whiffing too many attacks,m but I also have fragility problems that leave me short handed, and those are incompatible goals to correct simultaneously. There are absolutely defensive boosts and durability boosts I could take (Devotee of the Blade and Devotee of Slaughter both come to mind) but it would be at the cost of accuracy, damage, or combo attacks. Let me know your thoughts – I can’t afford to let Sleek look better than me!
Rain City Thunderworlds
Fishmode/Michael
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