Today on Spent Glory we have a special treat. This year, the Goonhammer Open held a Worlds-Qualifier Warhammer Underworlds event for the first time. For those who aren’t in the know, goonhammer.com is a fantastic source for effectively all of your wargaming needs – they have competitive articles, product review, roundtables, and all kinds of other stuff for dozens of games both in and out of the Warhammer universes. They produce what’s arguably the highest quality content for our hobby you can find online, and until recently had very little to do with Underworlds. That all changed when they ran this event, and we can only hope as a community that it’s the sign of good things to come – imagine how much growth we can see when a website that has legitimately half a million unique visitors starts to promote our game.
In celebration of this good news, I’ve wrangled Craigsistential, the Grand Clash winner, into covering the experience leading up to and during the event. He took the Gnarlspirit Pack paired with Hungering Parasite and now is a certified golden-ticket-having Atlanta-bound champion of the Underworlds. Let’s hear together how he took two menaces and blended them into something even better.
I first bought into Underworlds with the Gnarlwood box — pretty much entirely because I loved the look of the Sons of Velmorn. I realized quickly, however, that while the skeletons are indeed very cool, they are not, it turns out, very good. (editor’s note: You take that back!)
The result was that I learned Underworlds mostly by playing a ton of Gnarlspirit Pack. Even with their nerf, they have strong base stats and a fairly simple game plan, but within the warband they also have a flexible spread of abilities and strengths that allow you to pivot depending on positioning and gameflow.
So as I began to think about Goonhammer and NOVA 2024, the ol’ Gnarly Boys seemed as good a place as any to start getting in reps and thinking towards more competitive deck building.
At last year’s NOVA (my first Underworlds tournament), I played GSP with Tooth and Claw — which still seems solid, but the singular, aggro gameplan makes the deck a little one-dimensional, and it puts you in a spot where you’re relying a lot on dice rolls, which can lead to some real “feels bad” games.
When Wintermaw dropped, I wasn’t alone in noticing that Hungering Parasite had a lot of natural synergies with GSP (several pods and folks on discord also flagged its potential), and I was excited to add some positioning tools and offensive buffs without necessarily taking on as much downside as other warbands may be forced to consider. Half of GSP doesn’t care about inspiring (Gorl and Kheira) — and that same half specifically prefers being at Range 1, which lets them benefit from the stagger re-rolls and hopefully puts them in position to pass off the parasite’s ping damage.
Overall, the supposed drawbacks were well-mitigated just by sticking to what the game plan already was. Seems good. The bulk of the deck came together pretty easily but as I worked through reps, I made some adjustments. To share a few…
Objective: Replaced “Powerful Pawn” with “Cursed Tyrant”
There’s probably a good case to use either, but when GSP gets the glory train rolling, reaching 4 upgrades on a fighter isn’t actually too daunting — especially considering the parasite gets you started for free.
Gambit: Replaced “Lure of Power” with “Sudden Swap”
I really like having Parasite-breaking tech, but I wanted some positioning tools that could help me out of a bind should I find myself in a tough or awkward spot. This change was part of the reason I won the final match so I’m quite glad to have made it.
Upgrade: Replaced “Weakened Soul” with “Instinctive Reprisal”
Sticking a vulnerable enemy fighter with the parasite then surprising them a “-1 wounds” for a kill is an insanely fun trick, but I felt myself compromising on decisions to pull it off, whereas the return fire ping damage of ‘Reprisal’ triggered more consistently.
Feeling good about where things were landing, I was mostly hoping to avoid any warbands I hadn’t seen on the table before. Older (but relevant again?) bands like the Wurmspat and Thorns of the Briar Queen aren’t really in vogue in my local group and I hadn’t had a chance to play against the new(ish) Brethren of the Bolt yet. Not understanding how a warband’s mechanics work makes it pretty hard to understand a path to winning. But, yanno, we’ll see, right?
Here is a link to the final deck, with an image to the Underworlds DB
Alright, first pairings are up…
Match 1 vs, Dread Pageant (Rivals)
Aaaaand my first match was against a warband I had never played before.
Fortunately, my opponent introduced himself by saying that he was still learning the game and was just using a Rivals deck to find his bearings. He was super nice and we had a great time chatting through some of the decisions and progressions, but even if he had been coming in with a ton of experience, the lack of a nemesis deck meant he was starting at a pretty steep competitive disadvantage. I was stoked to see he ended the day 2-2, which is pretty impressive all things considered.
Result: 2-0
GD: 14-0
Match 2 vs Hedkrakkas Madmob (Breakneck Slaughter)
Hedkrakkas and GSP are pretty similar in a lot of ways. Both are strong, aggro, toolboxy, 4-fighter warbands that pair well with multiple nemesis decks. On paper, GSP has a stronger offensive profile, but I knew that if my opponent could get the breakneck gambits rolling, he could quickly swing momentum against me.
I picked target priority in terms of who was most likely to unexpectedly delete a fighter of mine from the table — Wallop (his “Leveler” ability + “Devastating Charge” could one-shot Gorl if my opponent had a lucky draw), then Toofdagga, then Hedkrakka, then Dakko. The first game ended up being fairly one-sided, as my bet on stronger offensive stats led to more rolls falling my way.
The second game was much closer as he had adapted and denied me the same strategy through his Orcs. I was behind for most of the game but snuck through just enough damage to kill Hedkrakka in the final round, gaining the primacy token, and ultimately winning by one spent glory. (editor’s note: Spent Glory is Best Glory)
Result: 2-0
GD: 8-0
Match 3 vs Skabbik’s Plaguepack (Voidcursed Thralls)
Kevin (the “Best Painted” winner!) has been a friend for years and we’ve played multiple competitive systems together, so this felt like being at the kitchen table again.
The first round was pretty one-sided, but in game 2, Kevin was able to take out Kheira early, then broadly outplay me from there. I was down one glory in the third round with Sarrakkar and Gorl left against his Skabbik when I had the unfortunate realization that I was screwed. Killing Skabbik would get me enough glory to tie things up, but I wasn’t going to be able to score any of my remaining objectives. Meanwhile all three fighters were Voidcursed and I knew Kevin had “Reshaped Realm” in his deck.
Sometimes being right sucks. Kevin won the round by 5. Fortunately I won the third round when an early kill on Rabidious kick-started my momentum into a quick snowball.
Result: 2-1
GD: 9-0
Match 4 vs Elathain’s Soulraid (Toxic Terror)
Going in, I felt okay about the match up because I’ve faced it a fair amount. But what I didn’t anticipate was the duel of denial that played out. I don’t think either of us ever reached 10 glory. At the end of the first game, we were tied with two of my fighters left vs his one — but his fighter was on an objective. I thought the first tiebreaker was “Number of surviving fighters” and he politely corrected me. I scrambled to check a rule book. I was wrong, he was right. Sometimes being wrong sucks, too. But it was a good lesson and reminder to actually know your win conditions. 0-1 start. Yikes.
The next round was more lopsided in my favor. I saw an opportunity to take out Elathain pretty early, and shortly after my opponent conceded. 1-1, onto R3.
I don’t think the last game was won or lost with positioning or dice but by deck composition. I just had the right cards to react at the right time. When Gorl (with the parasite) was poisoned with “Ill-Prepared” (or “Was given ‘Scorpion Boots’’ as we say in my local group), I was able to “Sudden Swap” him with Lupan and swing at Tammael. When a gambit pushed me away, I had “The Curse Demands” to push myself back, allowing me to pass off a ping damage instead of taking it from the parasite. And as the game was nearing its end, “Malefic Siphon” allowed me to kill Fuirann during the power step after his activation, narrowing his path and later sealing the deal after three incredibly stressful games.
Result: 2-1
GD: 14-0
A Final Note
I’d be remiss if I didn’t shout out how well organized and run the event itself was. A huge shout out to Jake who put in a lot of work to make sure every situation and detail was clear, considered, and well-communicated. You’d never have guessed it was the first time he had run an Underworlds event, or that it was the first time Underworlds was run at Goonhammer. Hell yeah, Jake.
That’s a wrap! Thanks Craigsistential for the rundown, congratulations on the win, and looking forward to hearing about your Worlds journey this November. Thanks to Goonhammer for bringing Underworlds into the fold, and thanks to Jake for running the Grand Clash and making that possible. Jake did such a good job that the Goonhammer team is taking him on as a writer, so look forward to real WHU content on the marquee games website! Things are looking up, even all the way down in the Wintermaw. Until next time, enjoy spending your glory!
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