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.
This time around, we will be hearing from Sam(ski) of Canada, who brought Mollog’s Mob with BA/RF to the Alberta Classic this year. As a relatively new player with no tournament experience, he mustered up the gumption to get into the Wolverine Pit with the ‘Berta boys and see what the troll couldn’t make happen.
Hopefully this can shed light on his tourney, let old-time players get a new lens on the game, and encourage newer players to give a Grand Clash a try! Without more of my yappin, here’s the man himself to tell you about what went down.
Hey everyone!
My name’s Sam, but I also go by my discord handle – Samski 🙂 I live in the beautiful Niagara Region of Canada. I’ve been playing Underworlds for a little shy of 2 years now, and I was first introduced to the wonderful world of Warhammer through Total War – and after wanting to delve deeper, I was looking for something a bit more involved. After voicing my thoughts of getting into tabletop AoS, my then girlfriend at the time got me the Warhammer Underworlds Starter box, with Dreepur & Celestus. This was slightly before the Deathgorge release, which would have been September of 2023.
It wasn’t exactly what I expected, and I’ve never heard of it before then – but after playing a couple games, I was immediately hooked! I’m not a very experienced painter at all, and the idea of only painting 3-7 guys for my warband was extremely appealing. I really loved how in depth the backgrounds/story of the warbands went, & how their playstyles reflected that. I had gotten a few core boxes, some Direchasm and Harrowdeep warbands like Exiled Dead & Headkrakkas, and my collection was starting to grow.
If I’m being honest, I was a bit disappointed at first when the edition switchover happened, as I had just purchased a lot of warbands that I couldn’t use competitively & all the boards I had collected were no longer viable. However, I turned rather optimistic fast and realized that this could be a great opportunity for me to really get to know the game from the ground up & have knowledge of all the cards that are available. Not to mention, it could even be a great starting point to get new players into the mix at my LGS as well!
This May, I got the courage to attend my first underworlds competitive event at the Alberta Classic in Calgary, as it was decently affordable for me & lined up with my work schedule pretty well. Time to think about how I would introduce myself and my Underworlds flavor!
Warband Selection
For my first clash, I figured I would go with something I really enjoyed playing, as fun is always number one. I also wanted the warband to be competitively viable, however, and still put up a good fight. My two favourite warbands are Blackpowder & Mollog, namely for the 2 centerpiece models in each warband. The bigger the better for bonks, right? Unfortunately, I felt as though Blackpowder just wasn’t up to the cut for some of the other warbands he may face, so that left me with my main man Mollog! Who could resist that cuddly and toothy smile anyways?
I felt his Nasty Critters warscroll ability was very powerful, and the warscroll push tech could easily allow some very easy tee-ups where he only misses on swords. His minions were no joke either – they often got their 1 damage attacks off and could often get off at least 1 success on defense. With a couple grievous upgrades (spoiler!), we could get these minions doing 3 damage when Mollog inspired as a bit of a surprise attack!
Deck selection
After choosing Mollog as my dank companion, it was time to see what he was paired with best. Blazing Assault was 100% going to be one of the decks, as the power cards in that deck allow for a lot of aggressive movement shenanigans to shift Mollog around the board without charge tokens. Scream of Anger is also a vital part of this deck for Mollog, as it allows the double charge AND can potentially self inspire. With relatively easy surges, some upgrades to make Mollog even scarier, and lots of push tech, I just needed a bit more end phase glory from the other deck.
I ended up selecting Reckless Fury as my second deck for a couple reasons: No. 1 – Mollog is able to score Arena Mortis by himself (and is the only one in the game who can?) as well as some other objectives in reckless. No.2 – Reckless has cards that allow for charge token placement on fighters, which allows me to get charged out on the minions to activate Mollog more. No.3 was obviously so that I could name my deck Troll Vomit (Mollog Barf!).
In hindsight, having RF as a second deck allows for some really aggressive plays and scoring, but it really turned Mollog into more of a linchpin than he already is.
Side note: I was not aware that previous TO’s had ruled that the stalagsquig actually CAN move, charge and be pushed. I was using my understanding of the first edition when building this deck, where he was simply a rock with no legs to scurry around, and assumed that was the case for the 2nd edition. Regardless of whatever the TO ruling may have been, I had planned for worst case scenario & assumed I would need to place charge tokens on him to be able to be charged out, and thus utilize the big guy more.
Preparations
I was able to get some practice games in at my LGS with some locals against things like Emberwatch, Ylthari’s and Jaws, to which Mollog played decently well into (Shout-out to Peter if you’re reading this!). With a low glory ceiling deck, my play style would generally revolve around disrupting the enemy though kills and the threat of the dreaded Mollog charge, especially with the Headlong Charge upgrade. Mollog pulls some serious weight as the finishing blow a lot of enemy fighters would need, and the minions were able to get me my surges and spread damage relatively easily, with the Bat Squig being my Branching Fate scorer, and the Stalagsquig & Shroom for Perfect Strikes.
With the success of Gitz recently, I had assumed I would see some of them or Grymwatch, and I was a bit curious on how well Mollog would do into large hordes, as I was not able to get many practice games off on horde warbands. One I was particularly fearing across the table from me was the Headsmen, as that 5 dmg potential to lop off Mollog’s head was no joke. Their warscroll also has some very sneaky abilities on it that would be a nightmare to deal with. Another warband I was a bit scared of as well was the Gardeners, but for different reasons. Their one ability to negate the 3 and 4 dmg attacks from Mollog would seriously hinder my damage output, and with healing in the warscroll I feared they would just be a punching bag that never went down. There were some other warbands I had my eye on (Dromm, Krushas & Reapers) that could also potentially out damage me on raw stats alone.
Despite all this, I still had my confidence in my big blue buddy & was sure we could handle almost any threat! My main goal was to have fun and put up a good fight, as I rarely get to play competitively in person.
The Event
After meeting some friendly faces and introducing myself during registration, David “Beardarm” was unbelievably generous and had given me his Mollog fighter cards and warscrolls on cardstock, so a huge shout out and thank you to David again! Another side note: couldn’t believe the generosity and companionship I experienced at the event and in this community, especially for someone new on the competitive scene – it was really something unreal!
We had a decent turnout in Calgary, with I believe 18 or so players showing up to clash. It was a one day event, with 4 rounds, no top cuts. Each match was a Bo3 and would be competed in 2 hrs. There were 3 golden tickets on the line, going to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. There was also many raffles and prizes to be won, as raffle tickets were given for each game lost! Derek “Captain Murder” was piloting & officiating this tourney, as well as the Kill Team one happening at the same time, so much kudos to him for being able to split his time for both events! It was ran so smoothly, with ample time between games for lunch & stretching the legs. Shout-out to Derek for showing me what a shotski is as well 😀
On to the fun part!
Match 1 – Ben & Ravagers
Match 1 I was paired with Ben and his Ravagers – he was running a C2C + ES pairing, which I thought was pretty typical for these warriors of chaos. Game 1 began with a roll off win for me, so I had elected to do the 5 neutral hex orientation with no blocked hexes. This was my optimal and go-to setup on a roll off win as it allows for easier aggro & gives the opponent first placement. Round one was pretty uneventful, with Ben hopping on tokens to desecrate and me attempting to keep him off of them. Scoring was relatively similar at the end of Round 1. Round 2 saw the death of Khagra and Zarshia at Mollog’s hand, with the help of some good beginners luck rolling. After scoring a couple more objectives, I believe I had taken the lead due to his decreasing number of bodies and ability to hold. Cragan and Razek were still very scary in round 3 with some powerful upgrades attached. However, by the end of game 1 I had taken it 17-12.
Into game 2, round one with the board now at 9 hexes in neutral – saw a very similar start to round 1, except Mollog was swinging at air. Ben was also rolling some hot defense which kept most of his fighters alive when I did connect. Due to some whiffs which allowed Khagra and Co. to desecrate multiple treasure tokens, and a goof on locking myself out of Bloody Momentum, I had lost game 2 16-9, which was also my lowest scoring of the day. Looks like we have a game 3! This time around, Mollog was mad he missed so much last game that he now had Determined Effort (pun definitely intended) to bonk these Slaves to Darkness. With good rolling on both sides, and a cheeky Scream of Anger inspire combo, I was able to take game 3 19-13. This left me at 45 glory, which had me in second place very briefly! A huge thank you goes to Benjamin for being such a wonderful opponent for my first competitive match ever!
Match 2 – Jules & Looncourt
I gotta say, I was very surprised but delighted to see not one, but TWO Looncourts in this tourney! Jules was rocking these awesomely painted knightly gobbos with P&P + C2C, so definitely a scary combo. In game 1 round 1 my first activation, Jules had pulled off a really cool combo to Counter Charge and score Careful Survey, which caught me by surprise and kept me on the back foot. Round 1 was a bunch of Morkish shenanigans where he kited Mollog around a bit, and I wasn’t able to kill much. Round 2 saw Mollog not taking very lightly to the teasing from the goblins in round 1 and he started bonking heads in. Poor Grinkrak got leveled by the big troll as well as other goblins, but Jules was still scoring very consistently with me. Neck and neck the whole game, game 1 ended on an 18-18 tiebreaker where I had the Batsquig on objective one, and he had no fighters on objectives. Phew!!
Game 2 was a much more rough start – Gribb took the Mollog bonking personal last game, and was able to kill 3 minions in 3 activations. Worth noting that Gribb (and any range 2 fighters) were good counters to the minions as they didn’t trigger the flanked/surrounded when attacking from 2 hexes away. With just Mollog left at the end of Round 1, and no fighters on the Looncourt side dead, I had assumed the worst. But Mollog was not ready to give up. After drawing into Keen Eye and Hidden Aid, Mollog went on a rampage for the next 8 activations, killing 6 fighters in them (I think he only missed one attack this game?). Near the last activation for round 3, it was yet again 18-18 and I had surprisingly went through the entirety of my objectives. Jules had 1 objective card in hand, and so I moved onto token 5 in the event of a tiebreaker. In the end phase…Jules was not able to score and I had yet again won on ANOTHER 18-18 tiebreaker!!! Had to check my underwear after that game…great stuff Jules!
Match 3 – Damian and Jaws
Match 3 paired me up with a familiar deck and warband – Jaws of Itzl and BaRf, commanded by Damian. The first game did not go very well in Damian’s favour, as I believe he missed quite more attacks than he landed. Taking advantage of the bad rolling, I was able to take game 1 15-5 from him.
Game 2 was definitely more balanced in the rolling, and it was very close across the 3 rounds. Mollog had bonked So-Kar and Ro-Tak into oblivion, and the Jaws had eaten up most of my minions. Damian was able to pull off a sneaky Outburst to after putting sufficient damage on Mollog to kill him – and he was the first one of the day to do so! I had lost game 2 19-15 due to losing my linchpin fighter & giving up that 4 glory bounty, I would need to play Mollog a little more carefully into these Barfing dinos if I wanted to keep him around for the big end phase scoring.
Game 3 saw Damian taking initiative and charging into my territory, as one does with aggro. The issue with this – I had drawn cards like Get Stuck In, Bloody Momentum, Best Foot Forward, and Frenzied Rush, which all score in the opponent’s territory. This would be increasingly difficult as by the end of Round 2, he was all in my territory with every surviving fighter. A very nice play by Damian on a Savage Mauling allowed him to inspire his remaining fighters & kill my last minion at the same time. It was still very close up until the end of Round 3, in which Damian was charged out with Kro-Jax and was forced to activate the snakes. With Mollog being at one health, he figured he would go for the charge… And gets double swords!!!! Unbelievable! The great Mollog had fallen and got mobbed by a bunch of snakes and frogs!! Definitely one of my favourite parts of the tournament, even if it didn’t work out in my favour…All in all, Damian played an excellent game, and was a wonderful opponent to play against. The total glory at the end of game 3 was actually 43-42 for me, so no complaints at all for losing this one. Was in a pretty good spot heading into match 4…
Match 4 – Josh and Mollog
Well…. I wasn’t expecting another Mollog at the tourney….let alone expecting to play against it! My final match was a mirror into Josh “Bouchy” and his sleepytime Mollog with C2C and BA. In hindsight, this is another very solid pairing for the dankold troggoth, and I was curious to see how well it would do. Both Josh and I had only lost 1 match up until this point, so this was a very big matchup. Game 1 saw the two trolls taking hard swings at each other, and I knew each game was not going to last very long. In game 1, we both took down each other’s Mollog, but Josh was more equipped to deal with the loss of his big guy than I was. I was unfortunately tabled, and he only had 1 minion left as well. However, his deck combination was still scoring end phases like Spread Havoc, Wreckers and Annihilation (yes, you heard me correctly, he brought it!) which I could simply not deny. I had an aggro deck which relied heavily on alive fighters and charge token presence, so when Mollog goes down, that’s pretty much it for in terms of scoring for me, save a few surges. Game 1 ended in about 20 minutes with 12-24 for Josh.
Game 2 panned out in a similar manner, where both Mollogs went down I believe early round 2, and Josh cleaned up on the end phases yet again. I had made the mistake of slapping his Mollog with mine for 2 damage at range, in which he replied with a very “Angry Scream”, self inspired, and charged in for a 4 damage kill on Mollog. I could have probably denied his Annihilation again in game 2, but being the hard headed destruction player I am, I refused to let go of the bonks. Game 2 ended 12-21, which I believe placed Josh in 3rd place. This made me happy as at least one Mollog would be moving on! Josh was an excellent opponent and really showed me the true power of the Troggoth.
All in all, I finished 10th place after dropping from 2nd after game one, with a 0.5 WR. I was not in the slightest disappointed in my performance, as I had met my goal of putting up the good fight in ‘Berta! I was also able to win the “Best sportsmanship/Best opponent” award, which sincerely felt like a huge honor to me! Thank you to everyone who had selected me, again I just couldn’t believe just how amazing the underworlds community really is.
A huge congratulations goes out to Matt “Set the Tempo” for winning this clash undefeated with his groovy looking Thricefold Discord! Honorable mentions goes out to G and Bouchy as well for securing tickets to Worlds. You all deserve it! To those who were present at the tournament that I was unfortunately not able to introduce myself to, I’ll for sure be back next year to make sure I say hi! Looking forward to my next clash and for what comes to Underworlds in the future!
PS special shoutout to Fish for letting me post this, you rock! 🙂
Samski
Thank to Samski for sharing the story of his first ever competitive event, and congratulations on a very strong showing! He played into a very strong brace of players and held his own, which is always great to see – especially with a warband people aren’t paying as much attention to in Mollog.
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 the warband you love, a couple friends, and Spend some Glory!
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