Investigating the Underworlds: A Series on Shadespire

I have never been one to normally be taken by small scale skirmish games, always much preferring the grand spectacle of hordes of infantry and companies of tanks (explains my masochistic tendency towards horde armies like guard and orks anyway) however the fairly recent release from Games Workshop, Shadespire, has managed to capture my attention. What started as a "Go on I'll give it a go" with a friend who had picked up a copy soon became a complete, and recently updated, collection of my own. Despite there being enough dice in the box to play the game, I have even bought the individual warbands dice sets. Godamn you Geedub...

Now you may be forgiven for thinking there isn't too much variety to be had in a game that has maybe 3-7 fighters that are all based on fixed character cards, but that is where the deck of cards comes in. A hell of a lot of variety can be added to a warband, completely changing how it plays, just with the application of these decks. When the Dwarves and Skaven were released the other day, I went through their new cards and cherry picked a few from each to upgrade my existing Orks, Undead and Sigmarines decks. I then went through and picked out all the cards I liked the look of for the Dwarves. I'd picked 37. The deck size is 20. I then had to spend a good hour deliberating over which way I wanted to set the deck up. I settled on one setup. After a few games I may tweak, or do a complete overhaul, I don't know we shall see. Bear in mind, that's 37 choices I liked AFTER setting up 4 0ther decks of 20 cards each first... if the dwarves were my first priority (orks all the way) I would have even more choices to agonise over...

So, for the uninitiated, I am not planning to give a rundown of how to play the game, there are tutorials out there for that. But I will cover a couple of basics that may be pertinent to the tactical decisions to follow.

Boards

First off, board placement is a big thing. You roll off for placing the boards as the layout of the battlefield can make a big difference to a warband.

In the example above, the undead player has deployed the second board, going for a long board, allowing him to hide his all important Warden (the only fighter he has that he can't bring back to life, and the one that does the resurrecting of the other fighters) a loooong way from harms way...

This is a good setup for the Sigmarines, keeping the minimum board contact amount so their small numbers can hold the line together

The khornate loonies would probably prefer something like this... wide open spaces to make use of their numbers to get around the individual fighters

So how you set up the board makes a big difference to how the game is played. Whether it is going for a wide frontage, choke points, or even potentially isolating half your opponents warband. Up against Orks? Deploy so they can put 2 or 3 of their 4 fighters next to you, but one is left isolated. Now do they put their leader at the back out of harms way? Or a less destructive character? And if the latter option, do they spend actions trying to drag him into the fight? Or do they just forget about him and leave him back there? Forcing your opponent to ask difficult questions is all part of the game.

The Decks

In this game you have two decks... an objective deck of 12 cards, and a power deck of at least 20. Now the sleeve sets that you can buy come with exactly that amount, you could buy your own sleeves and have a 40 card power deck, but it's very rare to run out of power cards in the game in my experience, so all doubling your deck size would do is give you less predictability over what is due. If you want some carnage, go for it, take 100 cards and see what happens. But I wouldn't rate your chances beyond blind luck.

A maximum of half those power cards can be ploy cards, the other half have to be upgrades. Upgrades cost glory points to fit to your fighters, which means a starting hand of 5 upgrade cards can make it difficult to get the ball rolling... but at least if you mulligan then you are twice as likely to get ploy cards as upgrade cards when you re-draw. The downside being you can't reshuffle the deck, So maybe you don't want to throw all of them away, just a couple. This has meant that one game I drew 5 upgrades, discarded 3, drew 3 more. Struggled as my opponent threw ploy after ploy at me. FInally managed to score an objective so use an upgrade, drew another one. My remaining deck was 10 ploys and 1 upgrade, which would have been great, if I didn't have a full hand of power cards already and going into turn 3 with a 17 point deficit... but hey, that's the luck of the draw sometimes. t least I can moan about that... If I had a 100 card deck then drawing 10 upgrades first just gets a "So?"

Now, with 12 objectives 10 ploys and 10 upgrades being your expected deck, let's have a look at an example deck and how I plan to play them... at least in theory...

Sigmarines

Yes I know it's not their official name but it's stuck with me now so... there you go.

The sigmarines are the smallest warband thus far, and I don't think that will change any time soon. Their individual fighters are however tough and hard hitting. Their defence is the more common shields, and a good defence roll makes them inspired, which lets them roll two defence dice instead of one. Being inspired gives each of them a second attack characteristic too, the leader now being able to strike at all adjacent enemies, while obryn can nowCleave and brightshield can't be pushed and can make a counter attack - making her very handy for holding an objective. With this in mind I would want to set them up with a narrow frontage and basically try to plug the gap and hold the line.

Something like this really...

With this in mind, what objectives do I plan to score? It's also worth mentioning that during setup, I would try to make sure there was an objective in enemy territory as close as possible to no mans land, to give my slow moving party an easy to reach enemy objective.

Now you can't have the same card twice in your decks, but you can have differently titled cards that broadly do the same thing, and I have utilised that to try to limit my focus, hoping to maybe double up on points for one objective where possible. As such, my objectives consist of:

Dauntless - score in an end phase if I'm outnumbered three to one - with such a small party this seems a good fallback option, allowing me to score points if things start to go wrong and I'm losing fighters.
Perfect Planning - Score if none of my guys made a move action - if I set myself up in a static defensive position, or am running out of fighters, this could be a good one to score.
Unbroken Wall - Score in an end phase if all my fighters are in a single group and adjacent to each other - it's a bit risky as it has a minimum group size of three, but if it comes up early game it should be an easy one to accomplish, especially if I'm plugging the gap as shown above.
Twilight Conquerer - Have all my party, (at least 3) in no mans land. Again, risky as if I lose a model I can't complete it, but it compliments Unbroken wall quite well.
Consecrated Area - have no enemy adjacent to my fighters.
Alone in the Darkness - There are no adjacent fighters on the battlefield. Similar to the above although harder to accomplish.
Seize Ground - Score if you hold an enemy objective.
Plant a Standard - score if your leader is holding an enemy objective (this is another example where, if the draw is favourable, you can score two points in one hit...)
Immovable Object/Determined Defender - both of these reward you if the same friendly fighter has held the same objective for two consecutive phases... again, going for the double bubble on a favourable draw.
I also included a couple of "score immediately" cards as they can be handy to get the ball rolling...
Lightning Strikes - take an enemy out of action with a charge
Crushing Force - deal twice as much damage as needed to take out a target - with two of my three fighters swinging at three damage, plenty of plus one damage cards out there and plenty of two damage enemies, it seemed an obvious choice...

So in summary, I am trying to keep myself near the neutral gap, perhaps stepping slightly onto the nearest objective and staying there, keeping my guys clustered together for mutual support, keeping the enemy away from me, and making the occasional dash if the situation demands. I did used to tie this up with "Keep the enemy in their territory/out of your territory" objectives, but I realised that my decks were very geared towards one on one combat, and that the minute the game being three or four player I could hold one line but then someone else could attack from the opposite flank, and I had no hope of keeping my territory free unless I placed the very last board. So I tweaked the deck. With the above being what I need to do to score points, how do I intend to go about it?

Unlike most of my decks that feature as many ploys as legally permissible, I felt the sigmarines were worth investing in, as they were less likely to die swiftly and thus be a waste of an upgrade. As such I have a 12/8 upgrade/ploy split in this deck.

These broadly fit into three categories - keeping my guys alive, getting them to hit harder, and playing around with movement.

For the keeping them alive, I have Great Fortitude and Blessed by Sigmar (two ways to get +1W) as well as Soultrap ( a dice roll that might prevent someone from dying) a Brightshield specific upgrade that plets her take an action to put herself and all adjacent fighters on guard, and if all else fails, Army of One, a card that only works if you're the last surviving fighter, but does let you roll an extra dice in attack and defence. Now my overall plan is to spread the survivability out among my fighters, but if I have a bad start and lose someone early, I may instead switch focus into making one unkillable tank to sit on that one enemy objective for two consecutive turns and not bloody move.

To compliment these upgrades I have some ploys for survivability, I have the ubiquitous healing potion, Sigmarite Wall (puts two adjacent fighters on guard) Rebound (on a successful dice roll the attacker suffers his own damage not me) and Valiant Attack - which could be used offensively or defensively, to strip support from my presumably outnumbered warband.

For offence, I have some nice character upgrades. I can make Obryn inflict a point of damage to enemies adjacent to his target, which could be nice to finish off a hiding fighter. I can give my leader a ranged attack, always handy if he's the last man standing and wants some options. Plus I have a generic +1 damage that can go to anyone.

In damage dealing ploys I have the ability to make a second attack if a first attack fails, and a one off +1 damage for the next round.

Finally, movement and objective tricks, I have an upgrade for Brightshield that means she cannot be driven back, and in fact can push her attacker one hex - handy for those "don't let anyone stand near you/hold an objective for two consecutive turns" objectives. I can give my leader the ability to move one hex if an enemy ends his movement within two... so if someone wants to stand just out of range, I can step in for the kill. Or if someone scary looks ready to pummel my leader, I can get out of harms way. I could even use it to claim an objective I'd been pushed off. I can also give my leader a riposte, allowing him (on a successful dice roll) to not be pushed back at all and in fact to counter strike. Finally an upgrade that can be applied to anyone allows them to, instead of pushing an enemy, swap places with them. This doesn't sit too well with the whole adjacent/no enemies near tactic, but it could prove critical to getting the enemy objective for two consecutive turns.

Ploy cards for movement are an ability to push an enemy fighter one hex, or if I kill an enemy, push all adjacent fighters to my hero one hex. Handy for clearing my lines for those "have no one nearby" objective cards.

So that is my Sigmarine Deck. I can't say how well it plays yet, I'm only just dabbling in this game thus far, and trying to encourage greater participation at my local club. But if a scene for it develops around Portsmouth, I'd love to test my theories and see if they hold water. I will explore my other warbands in future, although I'm saving the skaven and dwarves till after I've played my friend - he reads this blog and hasn't even seen what comes in that box yet, it'd be rude to ruin the surprise for him ;)

Sigmarine Summary

Objectives
Alone in the Darkness
Consecrated Area
Crushing Force
Dauntless
Determined Defender
Immovable Object
Lightning Strikes
Perfect Planning
Plant a Standard
Seize Ground
Twilight Conqueror
Unbroken Wall

Upgrades
Army of One
Blessed by Sigmar
Block
Cunning Duellist
Fatal Riposte
Great Fortitude
Great Strength
Heroic Stride
Lightning Blade
Lightning Blast
Shield Bash
Soultrap

Ploys
Healing Potion
Peal of Thunder
Rebound
Righteous Zeal
Sigmarite Wall
Tireless Assault
Triumphant Roar
Valiant Attack