I’m pleased to announce the first recipient of the Spent Glory Heroes award: Math AKA Wathlab from Southern France. Spent Glory Heroes is a series where we celebrate those in the community who give back and help us grow, perform great feats, or are just generally good people to be around and enrich their local scenes. If you would like to nominate a hero in your community, see this post for details and send your recommendation to SpentGlory@gmail.com.
Upon issuing the call for nominations, I was quote quickly sent recommendations, formal nominations, and general gushing praise about Wathlab from more than a handful of people across multiple continents. It seems he has really carved a rune for himself in our community, and we’re all the richer for it! I’ll get out of the way and allow Anders, the formal nominator for this first award, to let you know why he’s so deserving.
I want to shout out WathLab as a hero of the community. He’s not only a long time online friend for me through our shared love of the game, but a pillar for many more in so many ways. Many people will know him as THE Chosen Axes fanatic with more than 800 recorded Dwarf games under his belt – but his not sitting in his ivory tower/mountain stronghold, jealously guarding the Duardin secrets – he’ll be on discord, reddit, FB and in private chats, helping the Dwarf-curious with strategy guides, deck analysis and tactical tips for this OG underdog warband. And it’s is not only cool that he helps anyone who ask about how to run this specific short-legged warband, but I love how he showcases the strengths of repping your favorite warband again and again: How practice, experience and, just, thinking hard about your warband’s strengths and weaknesses can go a very long way in a game that is often shaped or even dominated by the top 25 percent of the meta warbands. This outlook has helped me personally stick with my own favorite warband, The Wurmspat, to decent success.
And all this is just the “I love Dwarves and am an awesome ambassador or playing what you love”-part of the WathLab effort. He’s also maintaining the Vassal module for the online community, he’s supporting the masterful board/token placement analysis of Flaviuz’s Monkey’s Hex-blog, he has made a gigantic effort in his own, homemade, FULL SEASON of Warhammer Underworlds with bespoke warbands AND re-made/updated versions of old fan favorites, to an immaculate quality of both balance and theme. Seriously, let me repeat himself: He handmade a masterfully balanced full season of Warhammer Underworlds which people actually play. It’s not just an absolutely bonkers project to do, it’s also very fun to play (go look up Beardgrave right now).
And with that, we will turn to the interview with the Hero himself.
Who are you, where are you from, and how long have you been involved in Underworlds?
My name is Math, aka WathLab I Four Dwarves & A Bear and I’m from Southern France. After a 10 year hiatus from the Warhammer universe, my brother Paul and I bought Shadespire in late 2017 and we both quickly fell in love with it… So… looks like I’ve been involved in Underworlds since
day one.
What originally got you into the community?
The lack of local community! As no one else was playing Underworlds in our area at that time, we were constantly looking for other ways of feeding the monster… One day, my brother discovered the Underworlds Discord, its wonderful and welcoming members, and from that point our situation improved quickly.
What community involvement have you had that has been the most meaningful to you?
Obviously, my commitment to the Chosen Axes, a warband that I’ve been playing constantly since march 2018. I’m an old dwarf fan, I value challenge above everything else and as a former Go player, I really like positionnal play, so the fyreslayers were definitely perfect for me! As you can imagine, I’ve played a lot of games with them… and when I say a lot… I’ve been keeping tracks of all of them since the start on tabletop & online and my current record slowly approaches 850 now. Of course, I enjoy playing many other warbands, with a soft spot for flex masters like Da Kunnin Krew, Spiteclaws’ Swarm or Lady Harrow’s Mournflight, but believe me or not, even after all this time, the most enjoyable games I play are still the ones with the dwarves ! ❤
When I started playing online, back in 2019, the warband had that terrible reputation of being very, very bad, almost unplayable. Of course, I would never pretend that it’s high tier – it is definitely hard-mode and requires a lot of reps to be playable… but with a good knowledge of the meta and of the warband on the other side of the board, there’s a lot one can do. To be frank, I think that many people were playing them either too passively or too aggressively, which was leading to instant losses and feel bad situations. Anyway, that reputation wasn’t matching my own experience, so I thought that I had to do something about it. Helping the other Chosen Axes players around the Mirrored City is the reason
why I started writing my strategic articles on Reddit, about board choice, objective placement, deck building, action economy, disruption… I lack time to do it properly right now but it’s something I still enjoy doing when I can. About once or twice a month, a Chosen Axes player still pops from nowhere, asking for help, so this original history continues to be part of my everyday life somehow. Some of them even win local events, which feels great. As I have no occasions myself of playing competitively on tabletop, it makes me feel like I’m also a member of the real life Underworlds community xD
Who has been your greatest inspiration in the Underworlds Community?
Without a doubt Johnathan Davis aka Wigglefish (fishes everywhere !), who used to be a pillar of the community in the early years (brilliant blog writer & data specialist and of course, co-founder with Aman of the well-known Path to Glory blog & podcast). I’ve seldom seen someone so dedicated and positive… He’s also the guy who encouraged my first attempts as a (weird & still unconventional) content creator, so I owe him a lot. Among the active members of the community, I’d say Flaviuz, aka MonkeyHex… He’s such an amazing player, with one of the deepest understanding of the game I’ve ever seen (if you don’t know about it, check his board articles, they’re true masterpieces). I had to work reaaaalllly hard to be able to compete with him hahaha.
Tell us more about Beardgrave, your custom season. What was the impetus for starting that project?
Beardgrave started like an April’s fool joke on Reddit with a fake dwarf fighter card that I claimed to have found in a Chosen Axes box… and that would later become Hergar Grey-Mountains, the leader of my first custom warband – the Brewmasters. 4 years later, this work has totally escaped my control with 12 playable sets (6 custom dwarf warbands + 6 modernized versions of preexisting warbands : The Sepulchral Guard, The Chosen Axes, Skritch’s Spiteclaws, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, The Wurmspat, Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven), 4 boards, 2 rivals decks, a couple seasonal rules, a mini-campaign… More than 500 cards in total ! The season itself is built around a very simple idea : finding a certain balance between two of the most important archetypes in the game – aggro and hold-objective.
How did you know when it was ‘done’ and ready to be published?
Beardgrave is not a solitary work – it has been constantly discussed & playtested over the last 4 years, in particular on Discord. Dozens of experienced players have been involved in the process. I can’t thank them enough for all their help ! When you make a custom work (which is suspect by nature), you have to bring as many eyes around the table as you can : it’s the only reasonable path if you want to design something solid enough and that players can appropriate. And frankly, a great part of the pleasure comes from the all the debates we have ! Even if a ‘definitive’ version has been published last spring, I think that it will always remain a work in progress. In a game of this complexity, perfect balance is a dream, but we can try to get as close as possible. Every game played is an occasion of polishing it a bit…
When the online tournament was played last May (see below), my gut feeling was that it was ready to be tested on a bigger scale. 80% of the warbands performed as expected – only two of them had to be reworked a bit : Skaeth because it seemed a bit too efficient and Flameseekers who felt a bit too hard to pilot when compared to the others.
How did it feel seeing that custom season run a full tournament online?
Honestly, if Tyreal (a fellow Wurmspat player) hadn’t been suggesting it, I would have never dared to organize a Beardgrave tourney ! 22 players answered the call, which I find surprisingly high, and overall it seems that like people enjoyed it a lot. For me it was a real blast and a true joy to see, even if my own classic Oldhammer Dwarf Slayers performed poorly hahaha.
My only real concern : in the end, it is not a noble dwarf warband but a bunch of skavens who won the event (congrats to Kyros for his outstanding mastery of Skritch the Greatest yes-yes!). We already plan to run another tournament – so, who knows, perhaps the dwarves will be able to take revenge…
You’ve been a champion of the Chosen Axes for years. What quick tips do you have for anyone who has the itch and wants to try them out?
With the Chosen Axes, the most successul and efficient approach consists in playing a hybrid gameplan, well balanced around hold objective and aggro, with a lot of attention payed to denial. As a dwarf player, never give your opponent easy targets and always try to disrupt their gameplan, whatever it is. And then of course, during the game, remember the 3 golden rules : First of all : be patient. Then : be patient. Finally : be patient ! Simply play that very calm Round 1 to secure your best fighters’ inspiration, namely Fjul AND Tefk, then start one-shotting enemies. While it’s still around, give Voidcursed Thralls a go – this deck is fantastic for the dwarves !
What need do you see in the community that you would like to see somebody fill?
My secret dream : an Underworlds community with one specialist content creator per warband ! No Gitz no Glory, Mandarga’s Underdog, Sleeksbowl – all these are amazing and we NEED this for every faction !!!! Please, Flaviuz, write something about your Sepulchral Guard and Starblood’s Stalkers experience ! And, ofc, needless to say that Anders should start his own blog about Wurmspat 😉
On a more serious note, I’m convinced that warband centric write-ups are very important for the game as they often provide new angles or enlighten some unexplored aspects of it. And of course, many warbands (in particular the most hard-mode and finesse) did not get the love they deserved yet.
If you could give some advice to a newer player just getting involved in Underworlds, what would you say to them?
Pay attention to board and objective placement. Many games are won or lost before any diced are rolled !
If you could have dinner with any one Underworlds character, who would it be? What would you talk about?
Tefk obviously – to ask him one single question : what have you done with the glory ? And why is it all SPENT ?
What’s next for you on your WHU journey?
Finishing my Chosen Axes Strategic Guide – but life, you know… And of course, reaching that sweet 1 000 Chosen Axes games mark !
By Grimnir !
Special thanks to Wathlab for accepting the nomination and becoming our first Spent Glory Hero, and thank you to all who nominated him. Again, if you would like to nominate a hero in your community, see this post for details and send your recommendation to SpentGlory@gmail.com. We take all comers – you don’t have to be as experienced a player or prolific a contributor as Wathlab to qualify!
Spent Glory 
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