Objective Placement For Aggro Players an in Depth Guide

Editor’s Intro

In my desperate quest to continue putting content out for the blog I have somehow managed to wrangle a guest article from the winner of a recent 52 player online tournament, Steffen – Stevie Wunderspat – Beier. This article is a two part special, with the first half exploring advanced objective token placement strategy while the second goes in depth on Steffen’s tournament performance – using some of the games he played as examples on how to apply his objective token placement strategy.

I really recommend everyone pays close attention to the objective token placement part, its an area of the game that is often overlooked yet with tokens mattering so much more in Beastgrave is absolutely essential if you want to play at a high level. Some of the individual tricks are ones you might have come across but seeing them put together whole cloth , with such a consistent approach should really up your game, as it already has for mine.

I’ll be popping up from time to time to interject some Steel City commentary, just to make things clear anytime you see bolded text with a ‘- mike’ after it that’s from me, while everything else you see below is from Steffen. Like this – mike

Steffen’s Intro

Hello everybody and welcome to my first Warhammer Underworlds related article. I am really proud that my favourite blog (I promise I didn’t make him say this – mike) gave me the opportunity to write it here. My name is Steffen Beier (SteveUndRund on Discord). 

Why an article about objective placement? Well first of all, there is no in depth guide about this topic and in my opinion it’s a really important and often overlooked part of the game. Especially in a meta, where hold objective play is really strong. I have never played a hold objective deck or warband myself, because slow elite warbands (first Steelhearts and then Nurgle) are my cup of tea. So I will focus on what you can do with objective placement to help yourself increasing your chances playing aggro yourself. It really stepped up my game when I learned these little tricks, but I had to find them myself. So hopefully you will find some of the concepts useful and adapt them to your own playstyle, helping you increase your win rate in some matchups. I will use the Wurmspat as an example, because they are: 

1.) Slow (if your fighters are super fast, you care less about the actual placement of the objective, because it is easier to reach/fight over it)

2.) They have range 1, 2, and 3 attacks which gives us good examples of what you can do with different ranges

3.) I have played them the most by far of all warbands and kind of invented the concepts for playing them

But since a lot of the things I will mention can be adapted to other warbands as well, I hope anyone can find something useful for themselves. So let’s get started!

The first objective you place is the most important of the game

If you win the roll off against a hold objective Warband I would recommend you to pick boards basically every time – just to be clear this means giving your opponent control of placing 3 objective tokens – mike. As the aggro player your main goal in this matchup is to get as many kills as possible while denying/making it as hard as possible to stand on the objectives for you opponent. This basically means you need to be able to attack them! The more fighters of yours, that are able to attack objectives without the help of additional movement ploys or upgrades, the better. So wide boards are your bread and butter here.

This is probably the most important tip I can give you and it count’s either if you are completing the boards or having three objectives to place:

Place your first objective in your opponents’ territory! Every time! No excuses, do it!

Why? Because there is nothing worse for you, than playing against a hold objective deck, which has three easy to reach and well protected objectives in the backline of their board. Putting your first objective on their side of the board is the only way to avoid this.

I can’t stress this out enough: If you are the aggro player and not putting your first objective on your opponent’s side of the board, you are probably doing it wrong!

How to find the “sweet spot” for your first objective?

Here is how it’s done:

1.)  Look at the board of your enemy and in your mind, cut it in the middle.

2.) Chose the half, which is more important for your game plan. If your opponent has already placed their first objective, the choice is pretty clear – it is the half with no objective in it. If the boards are long, or diagonal, it is the half which connects both boards.

3.) Find the placement on the board which is the closest to you, while still denying any objective placement on this half of the board except edge hexes. Bonus points, if it allows you to still be able to place an objective token in no-man’s-land to make swift capture harder to score.

Wide Boards

Here are some examples of good places for your first objective on wide boards, after your opponent has already placed theirs (usually far back on their side of the board). To make it easier: the numbers on the objectives represent the order in which they were placed (1-5). The spots I marked with white tokens is the area, which is blocked for the placement of other objectives. Because of the upcoming rotation, I will mostly use Beastgrave boards and the Penitents Throne because we already know it will be reprinted in the next season. The objectives are placed in the way described before. They are blocking a whole half of the opponent’s board while also are in the closest spot to your own board. Meaning that you can attack or even charge on them, even with small and stumpy Wurmspat legs.

After the opponent placed his first objective safe in their backline, we basically blocked their whole board and can attack objective 2 from three starting hexes, even with movement 3.

Same thing happened here.

Diagonal Boards

Finding yourself diagonal boarded is usually the worst thing that can happen as an aggro player and should only happen if you lose the roll off for boards. At least you can place the first objective and try to make the life (and scoring) as hard as possible for your opponent. As always we will place the first objective on the opponent’s side of the board with the same rules in mind. We cut the board in half and place the objective in a way that your opponent will only be able to place one other objective on his side of the board. Even the most defensive warband like Harrows or control Krushas will need at least two objectives to score reliably. If they want that tasty little objective, they will have to come to you.

Here are some examples for your first objective on diagonal boards:

Unfortunately, the sweet spot you would really like is blocked by a starting hex (marked with the charge token. You need at least a threat range of 4 to fight for this objective. That makes the Shade-Cursed Lair a good option for diagonal boards.

This is the reason why Molten Shardpit isn’t the allstar in diagonal board placements. If your opponent wants to hold objective 1, even Severin Steelheart can punch him in the face. Try to place your last objective on the free spot in no-man’s-land and you usually have a nice setup.

I honestly only discovered this trick myself about 3 months ago and it really does change the whole dynamic of how powerful the Molten Shardpit offset is. It’s fascinating to me just how much of this games potential is often untapped even at the highest levels of play – mike

Long boards

Long boards can sometimes be a little tricky for objective placement. Luckily it fairly rare that you will have to deal with this type of set up. You’ll try to place your first objective in a way, that the last one you place, will be in no-man’s-land on an edge hex.

Here are some examples:

Ravaged Hall seems to be a good board for the long setup now that I tried it out for this article. Or maybe Penitent’s Throne is just bad in that regard.

Note that it is the same spot as for the diagonal setup. I recommend to experiment with this concept by laying out some boards yourself and find those spots. Mark, and learn them. This can save you a lot of brainpower during tournaments. There are only 2 for each board.

General goals to aim for

The placement of the first objective is the most important. After that, there will be a dynamic, that is different in any game depending on where your opponent places their objectives. What I try to do is to aim for a final objective placement in which I can attack one objective on my opponents’ board and have at least two other objectives, that I can attack/defend from the starting hexes of my fighters. Having range 2 and 3 helps a lot here. melee fighters like most of the ghosts can’t charge you to end on the objective and just moving on and then being at risk to get some free slaps in the face often isn’t that tempting.

Here are some possibilities on how the objective placement could look after the dust has settled. The numbers on the objectives represent the order of placement (1 was the first objective etc.). If the boards are wide, we assume that our opponent had the 3 objectives and we completed the boards. For the examples of diagonal and long boards, we had the three objectives.

Try to aim for no-man’s-land with your second objective (number 4) and go for positions that can be defended without moving your fighters.

Seriously look at this board and think just how hard it is for a hold objective player to maintain control over 3 tokens in just the first round. Remember that the smaller Warband – the Wurmspat in this case – usually get to take the last activation in round 1 (you should almost always choose to do this) letting them make a charge/attack that can knock a fighter off a token with no answering activation. This set up right here really highlights just how powerful carefully placing those tokens at the beginning of the game really is – mike

I totally agree with Mike here for most warbands, but I want to point out it is different with Nurgle (can’t really speak for others). With the Wurmspat against horde/hold objective warbands (at least with my playstyle), I’ll chose to go first when I can on wide boards basically every time. The reason is, that the first power step is so important. I want to charge with Ghulgoch on the objective on their board, kill their first small fighter and then play my edge ping ploys. If they start, they’ll usually scurry/Varclav-push away from me and/or the edge hexes -Steffen 

We can defend three of the five objectives here in some form and Sepsimus could even charge for objective 1

A really important placement here after the sweet spot is our second objective (number 3). We already set up for the placement of our last objective (number 5), so that Sepsimus can defend them both from his starting hex. Or charge to objective 1 if needed

How to place your tokens in the aggro mirror

In the aggro vs aggro matchup the objective tokens often don’t matter that much, but they can still be useful. For me the main use is to block positions for lethal hex placements. Especially when you lost the roll off and got the three tokens, you’ll have the first lethal as well. If you know your opponent has Bold Conquest, a possible goal could be to make it as hard as possible to score for your opponent. Since your opponent will also often try to block some good lethal placements on their side of the board, you are often free, to place all of your objectives in your own territory.

Here is an interesting objective placement on Penitent’s Throne which I often aim for vs aggressive warbands. Only works really good, if you are playing an elite warband though:

Since nearly all good places for lethal are blocked for your opponent, you will always find 3 safe and warm places for your fighters

Advice vs specific warbands

VS Ghouls and Despoilers:

If you got the three objectives try to avoid putting the last objective of the game to an edge hex, to deny the possibility of a muster directly on an objective/Korsh teleporting on to one.

VS Skaven

If you know they are having some hold objective tech in their deck, try to place your second (and sometimes also your third objective) on a hex, that is not adjacent to any starting hexes. When they play their Mischievous Sprits, try to drag the objectives into such positions to deny the possibility of summoning rats directly onto objectives.

VS Mollog  

The big troll doesn’t care about holding objectives, but Regal Vision is essential for him to inspire. If you are pretty sure about his starting position, you can place an objective token right in front of it. This way he can’t charge on an objective, play Regal Vision to inspire and charge again next activation. Without any move ploys at least. Regal Vision is rotating out, but you never know when it gets reprinted in some form 😉

REDACTED FOR POSTING TROLL RELATED SECRETS – mike

This is the End of my little guide on placing objectives. I know the topic is not really entertaining, but if you want to improve your game it is a very important skill to learn. For me it stepped up my game to a new level and improved my win rate a lot. I hope you enjoyed it!

If you would like to give me any feedback or have a nice conversation about Underworlds you can find me on Discord. My name is SteveUndRund there.

I absolutely love the consistent approach that Steffen has used here with regards to objective token placement. As anyone attending a two day grand clash knows, your mental ability is a resource that you have to manage and it will start running out towards the end. If you can offload some of that ahead of time with a systemic way of placing tokens like this then it really will help your chances. Even when firing on all cylinders I have often found myself lazily placing the first token wherever and then having to fight an uphill battle just because of one lax move. Slow yourself down in that initial part of the game and follow this advice, it will do you wonders – mike

Bonus Section – The tournament

The recent online tournament took place on Nov 14th, playing 4 rounds before a top 8 cut on the next day. We had 52 players, which made it the 2nd largest online “clash” we had so far. We have had five of these clashes before and I played in three of them (two times with Wurmspat and one time with Steelhearts). But I hadn’t managed to make it to the top 8 yet. Just for the record: I have the matchups and glory totals written down, but most of my report is just from memory. Instead of an action per action report I want to focus a little more on the strategy I had going into each match. After that I will talk about how the match went.

The Deck

If want to try it yourself, you can use this link

Deck choice wasn’t that hard for me this time, because I basically just took my list from the previous online tournament, which I had practiced a lot and had a pretty good feeling about after having switched a few cards. The objective deck was exactly the same. For the ploys I switched out Frenzied Search and Unnatural Vitality for Nightmare in the Shadows and Unnatural Truce. The reason for that change was basically that I sometimes found it very hard to actually chose a card to discard and in other games Frenzied Search bricked in the late game, because I wasn’t able to move onto an objective while following my game plan. The second Distraction helped me a lot vs hold objective decks and to inspire as well. It is one of the best cards in the game for a reason. Upgrade wise I switched Potion of Rage and Virulent Blade for Deserved Confidence and Vision of Glory. Deserved Confidence is just pure gold and should be in every Nurgle deck, Vision of Glory can probably just go in every deck (restriction incoming). On the other hand, the most common use of Potion of Rage, was to discard it into my Frenzied Search. Virulent Blade was really good, but it didn’t work for Fecula, and she if often very important for my game plan. Especially vs horde warbands.

I had an interview with Justin from The BattleCast on YouTube about my deck and some of the strategies I used, which should be up soon. So if you are interested in getting more information on the deck in detail, I recommend to check out the video.

Here is a sexy link for anyone who is interested – Mike

The Swiss Rounds:

Round 1 vs Dave and his Profiteers

Oh boy, the day started off with one of the worst Matchups for Nurgle. The Gun dwarfs often use a lot of ping in their decks, and you can’t reduce 1 damage shoots with your block. Plus, having block for defence is a problem on its own, because they have good access to cleave. My plan was to kill as many of them, as I can before they inspire and hope to pump up my guys (and my home girl) with enough extra wounds to grind it out and win with a big glory boost from Avatar and To the End.

Game 1

I lost the roll off for boards and surprisingly he took the three objectives. Turned out he some hold objective tech in his deck with Temporary Victory and Supremacy.

Round 1 one was an absolute slaughter fest! The real problem was, that I was the slaughter cattle and my butcher was the first one who got butchered after failing a first activation attack vs his dangle bro horribly (you get, what you deserve for that!). Also not scoring Branching fate in the process. I killed Alensen and Ironhail, but not scoring any objectives out of it while he got some damage on Sepsimus. Going into Round 2 he won the roll of and after his 2nd activation Sepsimus was dead leaving Fecula on her lonesome vs Lund, Balloonguy and papa Thundrik (at least he was still uninspired) and I was down in glory. Not a position you want to be in… I really don’t remember how, but Fecula channeled her inner Sepsimus and managed to kill all three in the end and won me the game with the big glory boost of Avatar, To the End and Great Gains. But this game really got me sweating.

Result: 1-0, 19-15 glory

Game 2

I won boards and he got the three objectives again.

Round one went a lot better for me this time. Killing Alensen again and scoring 4 glory, while not losing one of my guys this time. Unfortunately, he had a whooping 10 glory first round, scoring a lot of his objective stuff. I was on the backfoot again, but my deck gifted me with objectives coming in the right order and Tome of Offerings arriving just in time. Him missing some key shots also helped a lot. At the End of round 3, every dwarf was dead and I took home the victory.

Result:

2-0, 19 – 10 glory

Round 2, Paul and his Gitz

I was feeling quite comfortable going up against the small green boys. Having practiced this matchup very often before the strategy was relatively simple: I try to get the objectives as close as possible to my fighters. If I have the choice, I start and charge with Ghulgoch on to the first objective on his side and focus on killing the small gobos first. If possible, I ignore Drizgit, because inspired squigs can be a pain to deal with and keep distance between my fighters and Snirk. Paul recorded that match and sent me the vod after we finished. So I have Screenshots here and for reference of my article above, I’ll show you how the objective placement turned out. 

Game 1

I lost boards and Paul kind of surprised me by not choosing three objectives, longboarding me with the Molten Shardpit instead. 

Here is the look of the board after objective and fighter placement:

In this setup Ghulgoch can’t attack objective 5. But my goal was to start and charge him into poor Prog anyway, while Sepsimus and Fecula keep protecting objective 4 and 1 with their range attacks. Note that I was careful about Fecula being able to charge onto objective one while attacking objective 5 and scoring maybe Bold Conquest. Those small things will sum up to more wins for you in the long run.

After watching the game again, I have to admit I was really really lucky to win that game. Paul made some brilliant moves, that completly caught me by surprise. He distracted Sepsimus onto an objective, played Shifting Reflection afterwards and then rolled him to death in round 1. He also played Collapse and Encroaching shadow on Ghulgoch and Fecula, killing the butcher in round 2 (who already had two avatar upgrades equiped leaving only Fecula left alive with 2 wounds and Snirk right in front of her face). The dice god saved me two activations in a row when Snirk only got one dmg on her with his roll and after that, I crit-defended the attack of his inspired Squig with cleave 3 hammers vs one shield. His Lethal Ward was the last card of his deck and I got some health upgrades on her before he had it. I somehow managed to squeeze out the win with a clutch Mirror Move reaction on his Quickening Greaves push, killing one goblin and denying he Path to Victory. Sometimes you really need some help from the dice to make a deep run into a tournament. Phew…

Result: 1-0, 15 – 8 glory

Game 2

He won the roll off for boards again. After losing game one he went back to the roots and tried the classic Gitz board with three objectives this time. Here is how the Objective placement turned out:

This is the exact objective placement, which you aim for going into Gitz. Sepsimus and Fecula can each protect two objectives without moving, Ghulgoch can protect one, and charge on another one on his side of the board.

The game was an absolute massacre and I managed to wipe him out in the end. He had to throw away his power cards as well and had some unlucky rollings with Snirk.

Result: 2-0, 25 – 6 glory

Round 3 vs Willy with Spiteclaw’s Swarm

I knew Willy from some practice sessions, but never played his rats before. So I wasn’t really sure what he would come up with. I had a clue it had something to do with combo weapons + black hunger on Hungering Skaven though. He sometimes uses unpopular cards to surprise his opponents and he really didn’t disappoint in that regard. The match was really close, going into overtime and my brain was completely melted after that. I can’t remember how the roll offs and rounds turned off in detail but at least I have the glory totals and can tell you a few key moments that I remember.

Game 1

Spoiler: I lost my first Game of the tournament and there were some key moments responsible for this:

At the beginning of round 2 I equipped Vision of glory on Sepsimus and charged for a rat. He charged back with Hungering (having combo upgrades equipped already). After his action, I removed my charge token with VoG and in the power step equipped Tome of Offerings. He simply pulled Winded out of his hat and just gave me my Charge token back, which caught me completely by surprise. Good bye Sepsimus for Round 2…. At the beginning of round 3 he kind of did the same to him by playing Leadbone Dust after his first activation and giving him a move token. To make things even worse he killed Ghulgoch and Sepsimus in a single black hunger swing towards the end of round three, while having ToO himself and scored Perfect Match. Ouch…

I am really interested in the deck that Willy ran, would love to have a proper look at it if I can. In preparation for this tournament I experimented with something very similar and I found it to be very powerful but quite inconsistent, leaving me to relegate it for the time being. We might see a point in the future where combo Skaven do become viable though so keep an eye on that – mike

Result:

0-1, 18 – 23 glory

Game 2

No memories of this game unfortunately, but I adapted in ignoring the Hungering Skaven as best as I could to not getting him inspired and managed to win it.

Result:

1-1, 14 – 11 glory

Game 3

He won the roll off and took the Molten Shardpit in a diagonal setting. This way it became a much more control style of game, which I managed to win by Fecula having some clutch kills and spell kills with Tome of Offerings on her.

Result:

2-1, 24 – 12 glory

Round 4: Ruben with Despoilers 

I was really happy to see Despoilers for the deciding game for the top 8. A lot of low health fighters with poor defence characteristics and one of them usually starting on an edge hex? Sign me in! Strategy: Kill Draknar first if possible and then keep killing.

Game 1

I won the roll off and gave him objectives. I got a nice wide board setting with some good dice. Nothing more to ask for I guess. I wiped him out at the start of round three.

Result:

1-0, 23 – 2 glory

Game 2

This time he won the roll off and opted for a diagonal setup with the Shade-Cursed Lair. I had to throw away my objectives with Avatar, To the End and Fired Up. It was more controlish than the first game with less glories, but in the End I grinded it out and managed to wipe him again (this time in the final activation of round 3). It was a lot closer though.

Result:

2-0, 13 – 8 glory

The top 8 Cut

I was really happy to finally reach the top 8 finish in my Underworlds life. The big task now was not getting too drunk an being able to bring my A-game for the next day. The top 8 players in no particular order were the following:

Tom (Bond) with Wurmspat Steel City’s very own festering pustule – mike

Etienne with Krushas

Nikita with Gitz

Janek with Rippa’s

Graham with Grymwatch

Zach with Hrothgorn

Me with Wurmspat

And Mollog with Mike (there is no other way to write it) That’s fair – mike

After the pairings were out I knew I had to face the Ogre in the quarterfinals. The other matchups were Wurmspat vs Gitz, Ghouls vs Rippa’s and Mollog vs Krushas. Since it was the knockout stage of the tournament, I don’t have the glory counts here. It was do or die now!

Quarterfinal vs Zach, Hrothgorn’s Mantrappers

I had played this matchup a lot before Arena Mortis and it is often very swingy in my opinion. It usually comes down to some clutch dice rolls. My strategy going into this match was to place my fighters in such a way that the Ogre has no free attacks and hope to inspire fast due to some ping dmg on the gnoblars. Hopefully even killing one or two in the process and getting a few upgrades on. Making it as hard as possible for the Ogre to inspire himself and then switching the focus on killing him asap. That’s the theory, but if he gets some quick glory and equips Gloryseeker and Hunter’s Talisman it can go downwards pretty quickly.

Game 1

After winning the roll off basically everything went as planned. For fighter placement… At this point I would love to tell you some stories about how I brilliantly outplayed him to sneak out the victory in the end, but unfortunately there are none. His deck and his dice teamed up and forged an evil plan in the flames of hell to make him lose in the worst possible way. Starting with having to throw away his objectives and then following up with nearly no successful attacks at all for him. By the time the ogre died in round 3 he had only one kill and hadn’t scored a single objective. It turned out that he had teched his deck more for facing horde/objective play.

Result: 

1 – 0

Game 2

I don’t remember who won the roll off, but since we were both kind of agro it was wide boards again. He started by rushing in with his cat into my Ghulgoch to score Gathered Momentum. He even rolled a crit, but I was at least able to reduce the damage with a timely shield. On his drive back I reacted with mirror move and killed Thrafnir in the following activation. another well timed shield reduced his Gloryseeker shot, saving me from death and I was able to inspire and get some damage onto the ogre as well. For round 2, I won the roll off and charged in with Fecula + Sting of the Ur-Grub to kill his leader in activation 1. The beast was slain and he conceded. Zach is a really good player, but the luck wasn’t on his side this time.

Result:

2 – 0

So far so good, semifinals here I come! We finished the whole match in under 50 min, so I had more than enough time to prepare myself with lots of coffee and cigarettes while waiting for the others to finish. I was rooting for the horde warbands and Krushas. Mollog is always a hard matchup when you fail to roll some shields in time.

The Semifinals were the following:

Tom (Wurmspat) vs Janek (Rippas) Steel City representing top 4 – mike

Me (Wurmspat) vs Etienne (Krushas)

I don’t want to talk about my quarter final loss – mike

Semifinal vs Etienne, Morgok’s Krushas

I had never played Etienne’s Krushas before, but since we are playing in the same league I knew it would be probably a control version with Perfect Match in it. When I play vs control Krushas, and especially the Perfect Match version, my plan is to deny him easy access to two objective tokens. Sounds kind of simple, but isn’t always in practice. My main focus here is “Got it Boss”, because it is the easiest one to deny. This matchup tends to be kind of low scoring in the beginning so the second one I aim for is usually Show of Force. Spreading the ping damage on to the fighters, to inspire as fast as possible and then being able to kill them in one hit, when you finally reach them. Winning the roll of and having a nice, wide board setup helps a lot. Target priority is always the one with 2 or more upgrades first, to deny Show of Force. If he has scored it already or it is out of reach anyway, go for ‘Ardscull since he can one-shot your fighters if everything goes well for him. It is also really important to move forward in any activation, even if you can’t get out a charge immediately.

Game 1

He won the roll off and surprisingly chose the three objectives, placing the first one right at the start of my board. He had to throw away his objectives with perfect match in it, which made me keep a suboptimal hand with Fired Up, Team Effort and To the End. I had the ploys to inspire fast, so I knew I would probably be able to outscore him at the End of round 3. Also two of my Surges need a kill for myself, which sometimes can be tricky round 1 vs the big green boys. I won the roll off for starting and my first activation was Fecula charging onto the only objective in reach for him, dealing one very important dmg for inspiration while blocking the objective for Got It, Boss. I got the early inspire and rolling a crit in nearly every single roll also helped. I had his whole crew dead by the end of round two and he conceded.

Result:

1-0

Game 2

I won the roll and gave him objectives again. This time it was my turn to throw away my hand. 4 upgrades, one of them an Avatar piece that wouldn’t have done me any good. Down by 3 glory for the Avatar already my plan now was to kill his guys asap. Luckily for me the newly drawn power-hand supported this plan pretty nicely. He also missed an important attack, which would have pushed me off the objective which I was blocking. He probably would have been able to score Got It, Boss if he had hit. I kept punching until everyone of his team was down by around the middle of round 2.

Result:

2-0

The Final vs Janek, Rippa’s Snarlfangs

I was really nervous, going into the most important match of my underworlds life so far. Rippa’s is a very swingy matchup and is often heavily decided by dice rolls. At first glance it looks favourable for the Wurmspat, but is really more like a 50/50. It can be really hard to inspire for the Nurgles and in general the wolf riders can decide when the fighting starts due to their superior movement speed. On the other hand, when you are inspired, your fighter stats are better and you can grind it out, as long as you inspire fast.  Going into Rippa’s I use the following strategy: As always try to inspire as fast as possible, but this time it is a little bit trickier, since you have to do it without attacking Rippa. Pings and the spells come in handy for that.

Usually the first time I attack Rippa himself in a game is, when the other two are dead, or I am already in round two and Rippa is the only fighter, that hasn’t charged yet + I am really sure I can kill him with my attack. The theory behind is, that you want to fight with three inspired fighters vs one. And even more important: you want to avoid getting their wolf bites up from one to two dice. The easiest way for the Spat to lose in this matchup is getting bitten a few times from angry wolfs. Also if I have the choice between killing one of their fighters with my ping or spreading it to inspire, I always go for the inspire and try to grind it out from there. Mike and Oli were commentating the final so I can show you how the boards turned out.

Our commentary was as always a work of art where me and Oli try to guess what a player is doing at a given moment only to realise afterwards that we are being dense – mike

Game 1

I lost the roll off and he gave me the three objectives. We both didn’t know each other’s decks. One thing I like about the Wurmspat quite a lot is that your opponent has to guess if you are more on the aggro or control side. Here is how the placement looked like:

Objective number 5 was the first Objective I put down, both to give a good way to score Bold Conquest, if I would draw it, while denying his Bold Conquest if he would play it. I wanted to put my 2^nd objective on the spot, where his lethal landed, but he saw that coming and denied my plan.

He threw away his objective hand, which had Loaded with Plunder, Cruel Hunters, aaaaaaand… Bold Conquest and I was really happy with my objective placement. I kept a hand with Team Effort, Faithful Reward and Unexpected Pitfall. He won the roll off and made me go first. I drew a power card and played Encroaching Shadow on Stabbit, while he was still on an edge hex, preparing for a fast inspire. He also drew a power card.

Now I had to decide which fighter I wanted to use next in order to score Team Effort. I put Sepsimus on guard, which turned out to be a mistake later in the round. He charged Fecula with Rippa, doing 2 dmg to her in the process. After that, I charged Mean-Eye with Fecula and Cast Sphere of Aqshy on Rippa to inspire. So far, so good. Unfortunately Fecula was counter-charged by Mean-Eye (missing both attacks) and I had to decide if I wanted to score a secured glory from Team Effort, or try to kill Mean-Eye with Sepsimus while I got support. We were both on 0 glory so I decided, to just make a move with Ghulgoch to get him closer to the action and took the risk of my leader getting bitten to death by an angry wolf. And that was exactly what happened to her…

We started round 2 with 2 glory each, I equipped Strength of Terror and Mandibles of the Ur-Grub onto Sepsimus and discarded every other card, except Mirror Move. This decision actually won me the game. He equipped Great Strength and Bloody Axe onto his Boss and we went into round 2. He won the roll off and started by charging Rippa through the lethal into Sepsimus to score Gathered Momentum. He used his normal attack instead of the axe, I rolled one shield to reduce the damage, he pushed me back and wanted to kill me with Snare, but I blocked it with Mirror Move to survive on with exactly 1 wound left. After that I chopped through his wolves and equipped Deserved Confidence onto Sepsimus, making him immune against the Snare that I now knew Janek had in hand. All of his fighters were dead by activation 2 in round 3 and he conceded. Mirror Move can be an amazing card sometimes!

Result:

1-0

Game 2

He won the roll off again and gave me the three objectives. Here is how the placement looked:

Actually I really don’t like my board choice here and his board was also a much better choice. It was impossible for me to block Bold Conquest. My only way to score Bold Conquest would have been by attacking Rippa, which I wanted to avoid. He placed his objectives extremely good (he placed 3 and 4, my first objective was number 2). I tried to be super smart with my lethal on the left, but it turned out I wasn’t. A fantastic example on how objective placement can put you in a disadvantage even in the aggro vs aggro matchup.

The game started as horrible as the objective placement ended for me. I kept a hand with Strong Start, Unexpexted Pitfall and Fired Up. I had also Hunting Bolt, Quick Search and Sphere of Aqshy and felt pretty good about my chances. I won the roll off and made him go first. This turned out to be a huge mistake… On his first activation Rippa charged on the objective next to Sepsimus and did 2 damage with his main attack, the wolf rolled a hammer as well, but it was defended. He scored Bold Conquest out of it. I couldn’t attack back because it would have inspired the other wolfs. So I moved Fecula on objective 5 to play my Quick Search and leaving her in range for the Hunting Bolt on Rippa. He equipped Bonded on Stabbit and charged Sepsimus again. Spear missed, wolfbite not and Sepsimus was taken out of action after his second activation. Also scoring him Brought to Bay. Ouch… This was the worst possible start. Strong Start was dead here and my most important fighter is dead. Mike and Oli called it for Rippas here, and to be honest I thought the same. It is tradition for us to call at least one thing completely wrong when commentating – mike

For my second activation I attacked Stabbit with Fecula but missed. He played Spectral Wings and charged my butcher with Mean-Eye. We tied and he pushed him back into the lethal and scored Gathered Momentum in the process. My 3^rd activation was another ranged attack with Fecula, which this time hit and did a really important damage to Stabbit. Since all of his fighters had charged already I charged Ghulguch into Mean-Eye. Pushing him back into line of sight for Fecula. I casted Hunting Bolt on Rippa and inspired. This at least gave me one glory for my Fired Up and I equipped Sting of the Ur-Grub onto Fecula keeping the possibility of Avatar alive.

I kept Strong Start, Unexpected Pitfall and discarded everything else except Sphere of Aqshy. He scored Team Effort. So 1-5 in glory going into round 2. I made some sacrifices to the dice god and won the roll off. I shot Mean-Eye, killed him with Sphere of Aqshy and scored Strong Start and Unexpected Pitfall. I was right back in the game. He equipped the Bloody Axe onto Stabbit and charged Ghulgoch through a lethal to get the double damage. Lucky for me he missed completely, leaving him right next to Ghulgoch with 2 wounds left. Janek did however score Steady Assault, leaving us at 4-6 on glory. I could have attacked with Ghulgoch, but I had Vision of Glory in my hand and was also worried about Narrow Escape. So I equipped Tome of Offerings onto Fecula and went for the 3 damage attack with supports instead. I killed him and scored Branching Fate as well for 3 glory. He drew a card and I put Ghulgoch on guard and equipped Vision of Glory to Fecula, blocking any Snarlfang attacks. This is actually one of the bonkers parts about Vision of Glory, it blocks so many reactions – mike. Rippa got Great Strength and charged into Fecula. One hammer, which I blocked away. My last activation was the final charge on Rippa with Tight Defence on him. I rolled two crits and a hammer and Rippa bit the dust.

Result:

2-0

It was such an overwhelming feeling to win such a big tournament after all the work I had put into this hobby! Thanks for all the congratulation from all over the world. All of my opponents were super polite and friendly. Coming from MtG it warms my heart how friendly people in a competitive game can be.

Thanks for reading this wall of text, if you made it to here! 😀

Steel City Outtro – final mike bit

I hope you all enjoyed that massive article. As I said at the beginning I’m really looking forward to putting those token placement tips into practice myself. We don’t usually do guest articles on the blog but when a fan wins his first tournament and puts something this good together I can’t pass up a chance to get it out there.

Fingers crossed I should have an article out later this week that you have all been waiting for…

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