Yes ok I stole this title from Goonhammer and their blog on 40k, and yes I know it’s ironic to talk about innovations and not come up with an innovative name. But it is a descriptive name, and this isn’t a blog about word innovation after all.
I’m hoping to make this a regular column that looks at winning decks from recent events and breaks them down for us all to learn from. It is one thing to read a deck and another to play with that deck, but I’m going to do my best to figure out how it was played, or just ask the person how it was played (as I’ve done in this time). In this edition, I want to talk about Martin Higham’s Dread Pageant Illusion deck he took to the Warlords event and went 4-0 with. It’s a brilliant deck, but a bit of context first.
This last weekend (22 Jan 2022) I attended the Warhammer World Bugmans and Warlords events. Each event had the same deck-building rules – you could mix your faction deck with cards from one of the available rivals deck. This format was sometimes referred to as “Rivals+”. For Bugman’s the rival deck’s were the Essentials Pack and the Silent Menace Pack. On Saturday, if you were a madman (or a genius), you could use the newly released Illusory Might Pack.
What an amazing time. I have to give a big shoutout to Nick Bayton for running the Friday Bugman’s event. It had 53 attendees (!) and went perfectly smoothly. So much fun and great to be rolling physical dice again. The second day had 52 combatants and was well run by the Warhammer Events team. The two days were not connected – Bugmans was a best of 1 format, 4 matches and Warlords had a different scoring system with best of 3 format, 4 matches. All of my opponents on both days were great, I really like this community. It was especially good to see a lot of new players about, and older players who were returning thanks to the new format. I still prefer Championship format, but this Rivals+ format was still good fun and will be better as more rival decks come out. Most people took the Essentials pack, mainly because of the pushes and strength upgrades it has.
I’ll look at writing up my games sometime soon. I always enjoyed reading tournament reports from other players so I would like to replicate that. I did find out I’m terrible at taking photos of my games – normally only remembering at the last activation in the last round. Spoiler though – I won the Bugman’s clash with Rippas! Rippas are very strong in this format, but the real reason I took them is that I painted them over lockdown and never got to use them. I’ve not actually played with them much, although I’ve played against them a ton. Probably my proudest moment of the weekend was when Nick nominated my models for best painted and said, and I quote, ‘They look mint’. Ah, be still my beating heart.
The actual Warlords event was won my friend (yes I’m taking credit) – Nick Murray! Nick (goes by Sarries on discord) and I have played online a fair bit and I know he’s an excellent player. So I expected he was going to be a good shout for taking the event, which he did by winning all his games 2-0. See the picture of him below, with a lovely coffee stain on his brow. He also took Rippas, so the gobbos on doggos took both events! It’s easy to see why in this format – they do a lot of damage, have the range to choose engagements, and amazing faction objectives, gambits, and upgrades. Narrow Escape + Healing Potion + Embittered Survivor + Bonded in a format with limited damage and accuracy cards makes it very hard to take down all 3 wolves. Here is his deck for the event. I ran something fairly similar on the Friday event but I think Nick’s is the better deck.
I took my beloved Madmob on Saturday because I had just finished painting them, and wanted to get them on the board. They are good in this format, but not really the Meta call which goes to Rippa and Krushas. Having said that, I did finish 6th going 3-1 for the day. My deck is here and I think it’s probably the most optimal Madmob deck that I could’ve built for the event. Maybe I could’ve taken a Sword in place of Killa Instinkt, just because Toofdagga is more vulnerable in this format since the inspire is harder to do, and a sword would’ve made dakko a bit more useful (although he can do a lot of work with Gloryseeker and/or Fighters Ferocity if you inspire him). However, I will be the first to admit there is nothing innovative about the deck – it’s an aggro deck that can be a bit reliant on dice and card order. Hence why I came undone vs Krushas (although I will admit that I could’ve played better). The meta of the day was all very aggro because most of the objectives require some engagement with the enemy. This is why Rippas did well, and why there were 3 Krusha’s in the top 6 (and Krusha’s dominated the top tables all day).
Therefore, I wanted to write about which deck I thought was the most innovative on the day and which went 4-0, but lost out to first place because the games were won 2-1. It would’ve been interesting to have had a cut-off and second day of games in knockout format. I think the deck is a great illustration of how you don’t always have to play into the meta, or just give up that everything is one play style – there is innovation to be made!
Martin’s Dreaded Illusions
I love this deck. It’s not like every other deck that was there on the day. It was counter-meta. Martin even had to play 2 Krushas and took them both down! You’ll notice that he was a madman and took the new Illusory Might deck – I saw him open it up in the morning and build his deck on the day. Crazy.
The Dread Pageant are an excellent choice for this style of play. I had previously pointed out in my counter-meta article (which Martin kindly references) that they are already a good counter-aggro choice. They have good objectives they can score that don’t require a kill, and gambits that help them move around, push, and stay alive. They also have their own strength upgrade (which is great when you aren’t taking the Essentials pack) and more ways to stay alive via upgrades. In the Rivals+ format these can go a long way.
The Illusory Might Pack simply added to these strengths. Masters of Illusion and Shock Troops don’t require a kill and neither do the end phase objectives. They aren’t easy, but they are all doable, which matters as most of your opponents won’t score anything if you don’t engage them right away. The upgrades keep your fighters alive by improving their defense and health, and because Dread Pageant fighters don’t have great attack actions, the attack upgrades contribute to improving their damage output for the inspire and for Scintillating Sadism.
I think what’s great about it this kind of control deck is that it isn’t oppressive. Your opponent definitely has a chance to win and you have to play smart to make it work. This is the kind of control the game designers want, and you need it in the game if you want to prevent aggro from being oppressive.
I asked Martin to write up a bit about the deck and how it played:
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It started after reading the State of the Meta and Counter-Meta article. I threw together a counter-meta DP deck 10 minutes before my Vassal league match, played it, and narrowly lost to Rippas. I’d not been happy with the reliance on attacking and killing that my Rivals+ deck builds had so when I saw Illusory Might previews I thought that maybe I could use it with DP and have an Objective deck that didn’t rely on kills and would be counter-meta. My primary goal with the build was to have a deck where I had the most chance to score my Objectives. Beyond this, I hadn’t given much consideration to how to play the deck.
In all my time of playing Underworlds, I had never played nor built a control deck. Having played this through the tournament I now understand that is exactly what I had built and how it needed to be played. Every game I expected my opponent was going to be playing aggro and would be coming to me. My board choices were Ambertrap Nest if I placed first and Bloodtrap Hive if I placed 2nd. The third game was Bonefields. This way I could place Hadzu safely at the back (or behind the lethal and blocked hex on Bloodtrap Hive). I was happy to have Lethals with Hadzu’s ability & Lure of the Slaanesh. I quickly learned to max offset when placing second.
Glisette was usually my forward most fighter as generally, my opponent doesn’t want to make a low percentage charge as their first attack (since she is always on guard, and when on a gloom she only fails on a single support, effectively a 2+ save – Graham). I’d place a low-numbered objective in my opponent’s board within her move range to set up scoring Shock Troops. Not usually making the move for it until after any nearby opponent’s fighters had committed to moving onto my board. Having Glisette on this objective would help score 4 of my end phase objectives so she generally got Distracting Ostentation if I had it and she was in peril.
My early turns were focused on not committing myself, I’d want to move (not draw) if there was nothing clear to do. With four fighters still alive I had to make sure everyone had a move or charge in case I drew into Excess of Indolence. Pretty much every first turn was Hadzu on to an objective. I’d try to resist the temptation to charge as I wanted to draw my opponent’s fighters in. I’d try and avoid an early straight-out slugfest. That’s what the opponent was wanting and if the dice were even slightly against me the Dread Pageant quickly crumble, particularly if I didn’t have Shared Pain in hand. The fact I lost a game in each round, usually with no fighters left, testifies to their fragility. Only once did I have to change my plans when playing against a Rippa who I suspected had drawn Conquered Land in the first round as he was hanging back. I knew then I had to go on the offensive. During play, I’d look to concentrate my attacks on one fighter to try for a kill but if the kill wasn’t going to happen then I’d spread the damage. This would help score Scintillating Sadism as well as increase the chance of inspiration.
Insights:
I took two cards (Cruel Pangs & Fuelled by Sensation) that could choose my fighters so I could activate False Presence to reposition my fighter rapidly. I never used this tactic – Illusions gave improved accuracy and improved defence early game which really helps out the DP who suffer from shortages in both.
I played Ephemeral Fortitude over a 7th illusion but it never saved a life. Taking one more illusion dramatically improves the chance of ensuring at least two in the first hand. The trouble is the extra illusion (Bloodwrack Mask) isn’t great. I still don’t know which is the best choice.
Lengthening Shadow and Vicious Barbs were both chosen because I expected to be facing Rippas and Krushas (This is a good call because they both inspire relatively easily and can run through your warband when they do – Graham)
There’s no rush to play Illusions early. Play them in the end phase and they last until the end of the action phase in the next round (I didn’t know this until Martin told me! – Graham). This can help with scoring Masters of Illusion and Illusory Titan
Thank you Martin for those insights and this deck. I know this has all been about the rivals+ format, but there is a lot you can draw from it for Championship format. I hope it inspires you to look at new decks.
If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at setthetempoblog@gmail.com or on the Underworlds Discord channels as compak.
Take care and set your own tempo!
Set The Tempo 