Love Letter: Sacrificing to the Voidcursed Herdstone by Doc

Today’s article continues our Love Letters Series, in which readers of the page submit an ode to their favorite warband. The Love Letter Series was kicked off by this post encouraging people to play the warbands they love and tell others about the experience, inviting readers to contribute their passion to this website – if you have something to say, by all means let me know wherever you found this posted or by emailing me at SpentGlory@Gmail.com. Today we will hear from Doc, a member of the Underworlds Vassal Discord, who is going to tell us about running Grashrak’s Despoilers in the Rivals format, substituting their faction deck for Voidcursed Thralls. Doc favors the challenge of running pure Universal Rivals decks (even in the Nemesis format!), and really enjoys ones that require (or necessitate) very few changes. As such, this article was written about a favorite pairing. Check out the great Deep Forest theme on these minis! I’m personally also a huge fan of the Despoilers (and you can hear me rave about them on the Underworlds Underground Podcast), and with the Beasts of Chaos recently getting their eviction notice from AoS and heading back to despoil The Old World (mine are fortunately still on square bases), there’s never been a better time to give the GOAT some love in the Underworlds.

Who are you, and where are you from? How did you get into Underworlds? Do you have a local group you play with, and if so, do they have an online presence to help people find you?

I go by “Doc” on Discord! I first got into Underworlds thanks to a combination of factors, actually. After I got heavily invested in Beasts of Chaos for Age of Sigmar and Warcry, a good friend of mine gave me an “Underworlds Warband and cards he had sitting around”. This ended up being Grashrak’s Despoilers, and the subsequent deck that originally came with the warband. It wasn’t until many months later when a wonderful person at my local game store, passionate about Warhammer Underworlds, invited the local AoS scene to try it out. I brought my Grashrak’s warband, and the rest is history!

What’s the warband/deck/pairing you love, and how did you two sweethearts meet?

While I’m still fairly new to Underworlds, I’ve found a lot of success focusing on the newer Rivals deck with “internal parity”; that is to say, Rivals decks, typically plot-locked, that really encourage taking the majority of the cards internal to the deck to be successful. Not that I eschew deck building via Nemesis or Championship; but personally, I really enjoy the “flavor” Rivals decks can offer a Warband. With that, I’ve found particular enjoyment (and success, much to the contrary of my AoS games…), in the Voidcursed Thralls deck; specifically with the original warband that got me into this game – Grashrak’s. So, unlike maybe some of my more experienced Underworlds colleagues, I’m going to focus on the unchanged version of the Voidcursed rivals deck instead.

Funnily enough, the fact that Grashrak and friends are such an older warband lends themselves to being Voidcursed – the “restriction” most modern warbands feel when Voidcursed to 1-shield, is actually a buff for 90% of Grashrak’s fighters – most are on 1-dodge and stay there even when inspired. Not only that, the other Voidcursed restrictions hardly effect the Gor-band (thank you, thank you), since most of their hard-hitting attacks are 1-range (ABC, always-be-charging; shoot for that Unceasing Imperatives!), and Grashrak’s ability is not a dedicated action, but a reaction – no issues with being Voidcursed there either (play the Zealot Imperative Domain – +1 attack dice, and you can reroll one of them with Grashrak’s reaction; nifty huh?). Simply put, you can rest easy Voidcursing your own fighters, and they’ll perform the same…if not better. This allows you to instead focus on either whittling away at opponent fighters, or simply waiting out for more Voidcursing opportunities (and that sweet 4-glory Reshaped Realm by the end).

What makes the deck so fun to play in your experience?

Not only does it synergize with older warbands, but Voidcursed actively elevates older warbands – maybe not into the realm of competitive per-se, but it certainly gives these warbands the opportunity to challenge the status quo and offer an opponent a surprising challenge. Raid a local event, sacrifice Domitan’s Stormcoven to the Voidcursed Herdstone, live a little.

Link to the deck on either UnderworldsDB or Wunderworlds.club and then describe your theory behind it

This should be relatively straightforward- I’ve honestly found the most success simply playing the deck as it stands. Though if I were pressed, I could see replacing some of the gambits with push tech – this would facilitate some positional Voidcursing, such as with Reshaping Snare or Reshaping Burst.

How have you found success and/or fun with the deck?

While I haven’t yet attended 30+ player events, the local tournaments I have been fortunate enough to attend have actually given me multiple podium placings with this combination. While Nemesis is the most popular style in my local scene, I have simply brought Voidcursed with extremely limited-to-no changes. Quite honestly, I might attribute these placings not to some Seraphon-brained level of perspective or strategy – I think this pairing is just unorthodox enough to have thrown off many opponents. That, or scoring through Voidcursing has admittedly somewhat low levels of necessity for opponent interaction – at least compared to something like a more aggressively scoring pair, such as Ephilim’s and Force of Frost. As a matter of fact, Grashrak is a wizard, and there is not a single spell card in the Rivals deck…that’s about as unorthodox as I can get. When you don’t even know your next move, how can your opponent?

What advice do you have for other players who might want to try your warband on for size?

Don’t be afraid to think outside the hex. Grashrak’s is a warband that lends itself to pushing up the field as quickly as possible, and the Voidcursed deck as it stands appreciates opening up those opportunities for Voidcursed-related scoring. The Beasts aren’t Skaven-fast, but 4-move plus Voidcursed push tech like Involuntary Advance or Forced Movements can propel you across the board quite quickly. With 6 fighters, especially two 3+ ranged fighters, even horde warbands will be forced to try and out position your fighters. Plus, after you Voidcurse your range 3+ Ungors, simply throw them into unwise or unwinnable combats – if they die, that’s not much skin off your cloak, and it can set you up for some nice Voidcurse bombing as well (such as in the case of Reshaping Burst). Focus on Voidcursing your opponent instead of yourself, and just let them kill the remainder of your non-cursed fighters. It seems somewhat counterintuitive, until you’re scoring all of those multiple-Voidcursed model objectives, and laughing all the way to the Herdstone.

What threats do you find most challenging to face? Are there any warbands or strategies that others can use to beat this warband or pairing?

Admittedly, I’ve found the most trouble with incredibly aggressive warbands, such as Headsman’s Curse. A savvy opponent will focus down your one or two Voidcursed fighters in the early stages of the game; and this will leave you floundering for ways to score those multi-cursed fighter Objectives. This deck relies heavily on momentum scoring – that is to say, if you’re able to continually set up curses with each turn, you’ll be successful…however, if your opponent quickly ruins your opportunity for maneuvering your Voidcursed fighters into advantageous positions by simply killing them in a single activation…you won’t have “cursed”, you’ll just have “void”.

Anything else you’d like to tell the community?

Don’t be afraid to give those legacy warbands you’ve been avoiding a shot with modern Rivals deck pairing. It is wonderful to see GW updating older warbands through boxes like Rivals of the Mirrored City – but in the case that they don’t get to all of them, shake up your local meta with a few interesting pairings. You may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you might have better luck with a goat instead.

-Doc

Grashrak and the GOATs are old, the meta has passed them by, and they were never that good to begin with – or so the haters say. But in the Love Letters series, we don’t let things like ‘the meta’ or ‘top tier’ discussions discourage us! If you’re inspired by Doc and want to give the ole Draknar-in-a-China-shop a try, now is a great time. If Voidcursed Thralls sounds like the pairing for you (and it’s one of their better ones) but you want to test it out in a deckbuilding format, I can’t recommend enough that you do read this post by George/Kyros from Path to Glory. George details his thoughts building a Voidcursed Despoilers deck for Championship and walks through a tournament report with them – many of the same principles will slot into Nemesis.

While there are a few Love Letters in the works, there is always room for more. I’d love to hear your thoughts about an older or lesser or weird warband/pairing, what drove you to fall in love with it, and how you’ve piloted it to success – and especially piloting it to fun. If you have a warband you’d love to wax poetic about and serenade the wider community, let me know! I’m always accepting new submissions at SpentGlory@gmail.com – until next time, grab your favorite warband, a couple friends, and Spend some Glory!