Hey friends! This one is going to be a series of short battle reports from my experience at worlds and a companion piece to this ES/CC Starblood Deck Guide I put together prior to the event. As a brief recap, I planned to get on tokens and stand on tokens, and had won 14 straight games going into worlds, worried the lizards were too strong and that I would look like ‘that guy’. Pleased to have been wrong!

Click here to check out other Deck Builds/Love Letters on Spent Glory

Even if I did manage to blow people out, I hoped some Spent Glory stickers and these 1995 skink archers my 3 year old daughter helped me paint up would still earn me some friends.

Long story short, I went 6-4 overall with a 16-9 games record which is pretty dang good considering I’m a ‘play for fun’ type of guy. I lost hard early, but rallied and even ended up going undefeated in the Worlds Bracket after missing top cut, which earned me #20 in the world, best in faction, and two shiny challenge coin medals! The Starblood Stalkers are a solid warband, ES/CC is a great build for them, and while they have some vulnerabilities, you can do pretty well with them.

I won’t begrudge anybody who isn’t into reading long match stories, and I will try to keep these some combination brief, entertaining, and focused on takeaways for you if you plan to play with or against this warband.

I’ll also share this little schematic Craig “Cragisistential” cooked up for his own Starblood ES/CC and graciously shared with me. I would have done so, SO much worse without it.

You want to take this board and deploy two treasures within two of the stagger hex on your side, then aggressively mulligan for Violent Blast. Two treasures for the price of one power card, and it combines the potential for incredibly rapid inspiration while also giving you a boost to your cataclysm advancement. Très magnifique

Day Zero: Pink Slip

Brian and I decided to duke it out in a winner-takes-all best of 3 the night prior to the event, bringing different warbands than our worlds pairings. There will be more forthcoming on this, but you can watch the video here if you’re so inclined. I had loads of fun and it did leave me wondering why I didn’t just dance with the date who brought me and take Emberwatch Blazing/Wrack to the big show, but it’s water under the bridge.

Day One: Pools Play

We were organized into four pools of 16-18 players, and after 6 rounds the top 4 from each pool would advance to the top cut championship bracket for a chance at the title. The rest of us would brawl for national points, or something. The tiebreakers were, as I’m learning is typical for official GW Underworlds events, absolutely atrocious (click here if you want to read about proper tiebreaking procedures). I wasn’t planning to worry about it anyway, so just tucked into my first match.

Match 1: Hugo Arcera, Spain – Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz BA/PP

A lovely guy who played Borgit incredibly well, I knew right away I had a lot to worry about. His warband has a few things that cause me trouble – a desire to sit on tokens (so that I can’t), some push/move efficiency (so he can beat me there), and a range 2, 2 damage attack with cleave to delete my skinks.

I don’t want to take anything away from Hugo because he played very well and also beat several people better than me later on in the tournament, but I had no chance. I did make some mistakes in deployment and treasure placement, which didn’t help, but my dice were garbage, Supremacy was bottom-decked in both games, and it was an uphill climb matchup-wise. I was forced into some high-risk high-reward gambles while low on bodies, and it didn’t work out. So it goes.

If I could do it over again I might have fared a little better, but I lost 17-19 (despite killing Uglug early) and then 13-19 (despite killing Borgit early) and was given the sudden and rude awakening that it’s really true that ‘at Worlds there are no easy matches’ and ‘it doesn’t matter how good you are at home, everyone here isa champion’. Hats off to Hugo, who also made the painting showcase with his gorgeous warband.

Match 2: Matthew Penner, Canada – Skittershank’s Clawpack RF/DS

Matt of Set the Tempo Fame is somebody I’ve talked to on and off over the years online and was happy to finally meet the guy and sit down for the match. His models are phenomenal and I had to pause multiple times mid-match to ask more about the underlighting and the fur textures. Just incredible. That’s me excuse for why I lost, as a spoiler.

Our first game he did what shanking rats do best and took down my leader pretty quickly, and I was starting to despair at the third straight game where 2 defense with a reroll was underperforming my expectations at every opportunity. I lost that one 13-22, as Deadly Synergy meant he couldn’t miss, I couldn’t hit, and he scored while messing with my token business all game.

The second game though, I had board, priority, and the right hand. At last, things worked how they had in practice for so many reps. My defense rolls were back alive, I could get the tokens, and won 22-9. That felt good, in all honesty. I was needing a win at that point and it was cool to do it against a titan of the game.

The third game, I think Matt was actually a touch in his feelings because of how the dice abandoned him in the last game. He opened up our third with a long bomb charge (using Headlong Charge for +2 move, and Army of Two to be United for the activation) to have Skittershank slap my leader. He’s in a waystone hex and is rolling three swords + flanked with 2 rerolls, but he’s attacking into two dodge flanked and surrounded with a reroll.

I don’t remember the rolls but he did hit, deal 3 damage, and inspire immediately, then tag Kixi-Taka with a barb counter so I wouldn’t run to a token or I’d die. Major bummer, and a huge risk that he felt he needed to take – but it also scored him two surges. Sure, we played 11 more activations each, but the game – and therefore the whole match – pretty well hinged on that single attack. I kept it close but lost 15-18 and dropped the set 2-1.

Match 3: Valentin Hornik, The Netherlands – Gnarlspirit Pack BA/DS

Val is another Underworlds celebrity who run the Straight Outta Shadespire webcam league and somebody I played on Vassal once a few years ago. I lost that match and was in prime position to repeat the experience. We had both been 0-2 up to this point, but still had a nice chat and shook hands glad that at least one of us was getting a win today.

The first game went much like many of mine have gone up to this point – brutality in aggro, smooth scoring from my opponent, and just abysmal defense dice on my part. I hate to blame everything on dice, but man – these skinks have to get it together or this is going to be a long, long week. I lose the first game 9-21 and it felt even worse than that.

Out second game was effectively the opposite – Val’s dice abandoned him, I hit my surges at my leisure, killed a couple barbarians just for giggles, and won 19-9. So we went into our third match, not stressed at all. Val is a smart guy and very experienced at the game, and to his credit he adapted to the situation and the accumulated matchup info much better than I did against him. Check out this dirty trick:

Did you know Gnarlspirit can charge Lupan onto a token, give him a beast token, then use the warscroll to inspire him and put him on guard? There’s a token I don’t get to have. But wait, there’s more! Now that he has an inspired fighter, he can push the other three and, oops! They’re on tokens too. I still managed to inspire thanks to Bulwark Celestial and Confusion, but I was in a bad spot after that first round, having to work very hard and not score very much. Ultimately I couldn’t manage to kill more than one fighter and was behind the whole time, losing in the end 11-16 and dropping this set 2-1 as well.

Day 2: Pool Play

I came into the event hoping to win 3 matches across the whole 10 I would play. Now being 0-3, I was starting to wonder how I would justify my performance to myself, and rationalize that being away from my wife and daughter for a week was still ‘the right decision’. I really, really wanted to get a win today.

Normally I am not the type to get upset about a losing skid, especially against people who I know are, well, world class, but I was in my head and more nervous than usual. I blame the time zone change, idk. Maybe I’m human after all.

Match 4: Cyril Deneux, France – Kainan’s Reapers CC/DS

For context, Cyril was also 0-3 at this point, and he was playing a bit of an oddball pairing. I wasn’t going to count him out though, since he’s known to be a super strong player (even coming in second place at worlds two years ago), and Kainan is an anomaly to me. I don’t play into the warband much, and do usually win when I face them but I have never been confident I’m making ‘the right decision’. Plus, Mir Kainan himself is weirdly intimidating to me. Dude is too tall and freaks me out.

My daughter’s farewell to me before I left for Atlanta was ‘Daddy, remember to run because there’s a Grim Reaper’. Not ominous at all. I definitely wasn’t reflecting on that while he set up his warband.

Cyril’s gameplan kind of pulled him in two directions – he took the hold stuff from Cataclysm and intended to park two morteks on tokens to score Set Explosives, but he also wanted to shuffle into my territory while United. While that’s a Rubik’s Cube I wouldn’t want to try and solve, he did it very effectively, and also blocked a lot of my scoring in the process. In game 1 I did kill Kainan pretty early and still only won 18-16. Game 2 my defense was pretty great and I was able to play keep away to prevent United shenanigans, and won 19-16. That gave me my first match win 2-0, and I was 1-3 for the event

These two games took nearly the full 3 hours for us to finish, and every card, every activation was full sweaty mode for both of us. Despite taking his 4th L after putting in that much work, Cyril was still delightful in defeat and found me afterwards to give me a French die with a picture of a croissant on it.

Match 5: Dan Findlay-Robinson, England – Borgit’s Beastgrabbaz PP/DS

Hoo boy, Borgit again. It didn’t go so well for me last time, and the prospect of yet another Deadly Synergy showdown had me nervous too. But I did get the benefit of recent experience both in terms of my prior Borgit fight against Hugo and my prior DS + token combo with Cyril. Adding pressure to the matchup was the fact that my group Rain City Thunderworlds (which has been named that since Direchasm, THANK YOU VERY MUCH) is apparently not the only Thunderoworlds out there, as the South UK scene claims not only that it’s their name, but they had it first. Dan Knight told me I was fighting not just for myself or my nation, but my whole club’s future.

Fortunately, fate decided that Seattle does indeed get to keep the name. He chose the Spitewood Board despite knowing AG tokens help drive up my cataclysm value, because he wanted some more tokens to be able to delve and very intelligently put them adjacent to Uglug’s landing spot, used Reassuring Presence, and occupied two tokens for the cost of one activation and could then get to Delving, scoring, and inspiring. Working in my favor was that he was bunched up to be united with his mates and spinning two tokens, but I had free reign over the other 3. I basically didn’t engage and he had to choose which half of his pairing he liked, and I won 19-10.

Our second match I was able to disrupt him a little more with Otapatl taking one of those tokens and being 0 bounty. While I wasn’t able to avoid him as easily this time and he adjusted well, the inspiration came early and the dice chose me. I won the second game 21-11, took the set 2-0, and got a cool T shirt.

Match 6: Erik Slimařík, Czechia – The Exiled Dead BA/DS

While I had just won 4 straight games and had a match record of 2-3, I knew the chances of me making the top cut at 3-3 were effectively zero. Which was good, because my next opponent was playing Exiled Dead with Synergy aggro. This had disaster written all over it. But I was officially here for fun after my stomping in day 1, so we had a laugh and then got to rolling some dice.

Game 1, Erik did a little dancing and stared moving up the board while I got into position and inspired. I was devastated when he had a flanked Klaq-Trok double tapped and killed in one activation and I was holding Healing Potion in hand but couldn’t use it. This led me to probably my biggest misplay of the tournament – I charged Kixi-Taka to that one-hex-into-enemy-territory spot to score some cards. I could have charged Tok instead. I didn’t need the two-bounty man to go up into the trap. But that’s what I did. Round 2 he got priority, hit Kixi, drove him back (scoring Outmuscle), then killed him right after with the second conductive attack in that activation. And I was still holding Healing potion. I lost the game 19-22, and that series of poor choices combined with Erik’s good dice cascaded to a tight but emotionally crushing defeat.

For the memelords following along: yes, at this point my games record was 6-7

Game 2 I decided you know what? F it, we ball. I torpedoed Deintalos and got him off the board in round 1, Activation 2. Try dancing onto my tokens NOW, hater! You might think ‘Fish has this one in the bag’, but you couldn’t be more wrong. You see, he did have an activation before his untimely re-death to dance and take those tokens, and had done so. Oh, and Marcov/Regulus are still plenty good at this game. Putting everything into assassination at the cost of positioning is, uh, not how you win with ES/CC. I dropped the game 13-19, the set 2-0, but was glad I got a moral victory. then we talked about the food quality in America, the health insurance situation here, and the Czech team’s experience thus far and lost a lot of that ‘moral victory’ shine! Europe sounds nice.

I also want to point out one of Erik’s teammates came by and while I don’t speak the language, the impression I got was something like “How did you do? Nice, you got an easy 2-0 win. Wait, did you 2-0 Spent Glory?”

My man, it’s not that hard to do.

Day 3: Worlds Bracket

At this point, our pools were dissolved. If you made the top 16 you were playing for real, and the rest of us got put into the moshpit to play ‘a new tournament’. This was kind of lame for a few reasons – it effectively invalidated your earlier games and glory for awards purposes, and while we were theoretically playing to score points for our respective countries, there were buttloads of national mirrors. I shuffled my deck and sidled up to my table to take down… a fellow American… for America.

Match 7: Davy Calkins, USA – Thundrik’s Profiteers ES/HG

Reunited, and it feels so good: Davy and I spent last year’s worlds behind the commentator’s microphone as part of the streaming team, and it was fun to be able to finally play him after knowing the guy for a few years. Davy was playing Thundrik and that presented a few problems for me – they’re accurate, they also want to hold tokens, and I have to be adjacent to them to push them for any reason. That meant to contest treasure, I would have to cross the line into his… Hunting Grounds, for lack of a better term.

Working in my favor is that I have a handful of ways to prevent drive back as well, which shuts off a lot of his deck. Klak-Trok doing 3 damage with Cleave ain’t shabby either. In game 1 I knew I could probably out-passive him, but he had token placement and put 3 on his side. I figured, ‘why not dip in with Otapatl, just to inspire’, and found I liked it over there so much that I brought a few more friends to the party. I couldn’t miss, killed Thundrik, Balloon Boy, and somebody else, and he conceded halfway through round 2. I don’t see the point in running up the score, so we called it a 14-1 victory for me.

Game 2 I had 3 tokens, but you know – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I bullied over the line and had the right cards (Settle In, Hold the Line, Brute Momentum) to prevent his drivebacks, inspired, rolled hot defense, scored a ton, and never even had to use Bulwark Celestial. He played smart and actually hit Klaq-Trok with a Shoulder Throw to put me within 1 of an edge hex to score Pinned, but that felt like as good a time as any to play Bulwark Celestial and shut that off for the remainder of the round. Davy mad a sad face, conceded again, and I again don’t see the value in running up the score (especially since my differential was already a staggering +27), so we called it 14-0 midway through round 2, again.

Sometimes, everything works perfectly. I had the absolute best power hands, objective draw order, and dice. I really don’t think there’s anything Davy could have done better and he made no visible mistakes, it just wasn’t his day.

Match 8: Harry Miller, England – Grymwatch PP/EK

This was the tightest, best set I have played with anybody in months. Harry is an amazing guy and an absolute pleasure to be with. Anyone in the Agents of Sigmar group should feel proud to have this guy representing you because man, what a killer he is.

Heading into this match I knew we would be competing for tokens, but he wouldn’t have much more movement efficiency than me but could probably outpunch me and would have more reliable scoring. I also know that he had just come off of a match win over Aman Khusro of Path to Glory – a stellar competitor and a former World Champion. I was going to have to play lights out if I was hoping to take this set from him.

Game 1 Harry wins the roll off and chooses the blocked hexes Embergard board to reduce my ranged options and slow my Cataclysm tracker, which was both super smart and something many of my prior opponents hadn’t done. I thought it would be cute to kill Gristlewell and despite knowing the risks, walked right into his trap. He resurrected, inspired, and slammed into me again, making life tough since 3 damage is, you know, pretty good. I kept it close but misplayed when I forgot it was total bounty to block inspires and not just models, and Otapatl is only worth 0. My lack of experience into Grymwatch was showing. Later his Gristlewell and eventually Valreek were sitting with tons of upgrades but raised with zero bounty, and I chose to take the upgrades off the table rather than fish for more bounty. Who knows what the right call was, but I lost regardless 15-18.

Game 2 I drew into a beautiful hand, got to orient the boards, and told Harry ‘now you will see why I built the deck this way’. I won the roll off to go first, walked Otapatl onto an enemy token, then settled in to put him on guard, followed by a Violent Blast to get onto two more. I’m inspired before he even takes his first action, and after he does, I score Step by Step, then on my next turn I take a potshot with Otapatl’s cleave into Duke Crackmarrow to try for Aggressive Defender and Perfect Cut, scoring both. I’ve drawn into Supremacy, Iron Grasp, and Set Explosives. It’s like the game is scripted and the deck is stacked (I swear we did a mutual cut to open the game!). I tag the Duke two more times for fun and he’s vulnerable going into Round 2, where I kill him because why not? Despite the literal best possible round 1, eliminating his raise potential, and hitting my first several attacks, I still only won 20-15. His deck is mean stuff.

Game 3 I’ll fast forward to the end because that’s where it gets good. I have the potential for Set Explosives to score thanks to some miraculous save dice and Xepic tanking multiple attacks while vulnerable. I know Harry hasn’t played his Fake Out! ping, so I have to delve the back token and abandon it, moving to midboard on guard and pray this last attack doesn’t kill me since a Focus to draw the ping is now out of the question.

After a few minutes of asking ‘have you played such and such card yet’ and looking through our discard piles, we decide to be sporting about it and lay all our cards out face up so we both know the exact stakes. The Duke’s Harriers have their 3 dice ensnare but also Excavating Blast, while also holding Brash Scout. He has to decide: do I attack this 2 dice on guard staggered fighter with 3 dice swords, two rerolls and ensnare, or 2 dice hammers with two rerolls flat? We talked over the math and both decided his odds were best with the ensnare profile, but decided to roll both to see. The official attack roll had one success. My defense roll had one success. I survived the hit, scored Set Explosives, and won 17-16. Had he rolled the Excavating Blast (which we did calculate afterward with an app and it was indeed the worse attack) he would have killed me and won.

It was a pleasure to play Harry, I can’t say that enough. He was an absolute paragon of sportsmanship who also fought at the pinnacle of his skill, and I don’t think there’s much either of us would have changed about our set or the last game (except, you know, picking the attack that would have won it for him). We hugged like five times, I bought him a drink, and now get to be sad that we live half a world apart and won’t reasonably get to play again in person for a long time, if ever.

And to think, I’m saying all this about a Grymwatch Pillage player. Even my blatant biases aren’t enough to dissuade me!

Day 4: Worlds Bracket

Match 9: Sam Baird, England – Thorns of the Briar Queen EK/DS

Sam and I sit down to face off, both 2-0 in the Worlds Bracket and therefore in contention for a decent finish in the final standings. If we could get past each other, that is. Having just come off of an insane horde warband Edge of the Knife fight the day prior, and considering my prior suffering at the hands of Deadly Synergy, I wasn’t as confident as I would like. Thorns are a solid warband and I practiced with them prior to the event a decent amount – I knew what they could do, but I also knew they could do a lot to me.

The first game I was able to use some pushes and great dice to secure a very strong opening frame with a big glory end phase, managed to drive back fighters out of unity, and prevent his inspiration. I don’t know that I did anything more sophisticated than Braindead Stand On Token behavior and get lucky on defense, but sometimes that’s all you need. I won the game 17-8 and felt pretty in control throughout.

That might be why, in game 2, life got a little rougher. I chose the board, remembered to protect my leader by not activating him, remembered to prefer pushes rather than moves onto treasure to reduce mugging opportunities, attack only when needed, you get the picture. It was all going according to plan until I saw a unity ball I wanted to break up and a ghost inspire I wanted to block, was holding Improvised Attack and Aggressive Defender, and thought ‘sure, that’s a (the?) great plan’. I have three different fighters who can throw this attack and two of them are on tokens even! Which one should I pick, I wonder?

“Kixi-Taka will throw this spear for two hammers and flanked”.

“If I’m not mistaken, that counts as your leader using a core ability”.

Right you are, Sam. Right you are. Mugged, in my own power step. Surrounded. Inspiring an enemy. Eating a charge. Kixi is off his token and I’m in an uphill battle to score again. I’m very fortunate I was ahead at the time, because I was able to fend him off just enough to cling to the win, taking it 21-18 and winning the set 2-0.

You can win a game even when you make a misplay, at least, if the dice decide you still have the chance. I absolutely got away with one there, and good on Sam for keeping his eyes on the prize and almost wrestling it back to force a game 3.

Match 10: Diego Puas, Chile – Starblood Stalkers ES/PP

I knew it would come to a mirror match eventually, but the timing was marvelous. Diego and I are both 3-0 in the worlds bracket, and the winner of this match goes home Best in Faction as well as winning another award for going undefeated in the second phase. I know Diego is no slouch, having watched him at Worlds last year, and while I probably have the better End Phase potential and marginally better power deck, he has the better Surges. Let’s see what comes out on top!

Critical to this mirror match is the fact that our Asterisms are sort of off limits, and so we have far fewer tools than we’re used to. An Asterism is cancelled whenever another one is used – by either player. You can only play one in your own power step. Bulwark Celestial, your best one, will buy you a single activation of no drive back until your opponent can turn it off. The other two only give you plus dice or plus move in your own turns realistically, and so your opponent can shut them off before you get to use them. This means we each effectively had access to a single once per game ‘no driveback’ for one activation, and since I rely more heavily on Hold, this hurts me more than it hurts him.

Game 1, Diego wins boards and takes the blocked Embergard board. He then immediately manages to inspire and stress me out big time. I pull out every trick in the book to also somehow inspire before the end of the first round, but needed a lucky overrun to pull it off. I also scored Supremacy thanks to that little maneuver, but so did he. Trembling, I went into round 2 behind the ball but managed to draw it really close. Our fighters each die around the same time in the same order, and at the end of the game we both had only Tok, Xepic, and Otapatl alive. I hold treasures 1,2, and 5. Diego is holding 3 and 4. We tie on 19-19 glory, and recount three times to make sure. We had to consult the rulebook, but the tiebreakers went to me for holding a single point more in treasure value. YIKES MY DUDES

In Game 2, I at least get the board and get some aqua ghyranis to help me out. Despite this, and getting Violent Blast to pull my ‘basically cheating’ move to get on two tokens right away, he STILL managed to inspire before me seeing as he had the first turn, Sidestep, and put up his Bulwark Celestial. I run over and try to snag one with Confusion thinking I’m a brain genius, and Diego in this hilariously casual dismissal just flashes his own Confusion before I even put mine on the table while shaking his head no. So much for that plan!

Counterplay was really strong out of us both this time, and at the very end of the game we had fought down to the wire again. I ran into his territory to hold treasure 3/4 and potentially Iron Grasp. In the final power step Diego played no cards, asked me to proceed to scoring, and immediately realized he forgot to delve. I’m not trying to win like that, so we put Iron Grasp to the side, counted up our glory, and I would have won 13-12. He’s a nice guy and told me to score Iron Grasp anyway, so the official score was 15-12, but this set was as close as a 2-0 win can be.

His English is super limited, and my Spanish is disgusting (and probably not very similar to Chilean Spanish anyway) so we did most of our communication through handshakes, gestures, and smiles. I don’t think we ran into any trouble though! Diego is a great dude and I commend him for coming all the way up to Atlanta by himself and fighting so hard, being so nice, and representing himself, the game, and his country so well. Fantastic person, and I’m so fortunate to have had the chance to play into him.

Wrap

Ultimately, I came away ranked #20 in the world, which is insane to consider even this far after the fact. I write beginner articles! I actively promote playing for fun rather than going full-tilt competitive, brought something I knew was a little undercooked, and lost my first three matches. Yet somehow, going undefeated after the cut, I landed among giants and took home a couple awards. What a ride.

The odds of me returning to WCW are super small, since I’m probably only going to compete for a Ticket once next year at Tacoma, and might TO another Grand Clash, but otherwise will be mostly jamming fun games at my local nights. Despite that, I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to come and try my hand among so many mind-blowingly good players and am going to cherish the experience for a long time. If earning a competition spot at WCW is a goal of yours, take this as my encouragement and support: You can do it if I could. It’s totally worth it.

Whether you graced me with a match, shared a conversation, contributed to the energy in the hall, followed along at home, or couldn’t care less about the World Championships, I hope you enjoy Spending Glory your way for the next year and beyond. Cheers, friend!