Let's chat: Sepulchral Guard

[Biboune]

I had some trouble against orruk player with a deck aiming both combat and hold objectives (HO 1-5, supremacy, plant a standard, hard as iron, denial), and upgrades aiming to surivabily (fortitude, soul trap, inkillable etc.) and hit and run ploys (illusionary fighter). I used the strategy that Killax explains when i had only 2 objectives in my territory and round 2 he got backward once his band had suffer some dammages. I was to far in my territory to prevent him to score denial etc... (he kept distraction until the end to target a key upgraded skelli)

I beat this orruk player easely after some big defeats (and may be a close win) by... playing my stormcast band. What i mean is:

-I think we (SG player) almost have the same deck (everyone in this forum post close de 80% the same card list). So Sleboda deck should not be the issue.

-all the cards have not been released and the all the archetypes of decks can not be done yet.

- right now some bands have a better match up against others (remember the stormcast vs the reavers in the coreset?). It will be probably the same thing at the end, i just hope it will be less unbalance.

So, sometime I say it is better to try another band. When you play against the same player X time with the same bands, each of you customized your decks accordingly. It is a micro meta.

May be Sleboda, your gf has a very well design orruk deck against the SG, may be the current cards cannot let you build a good SG deck against orruk, may be her deck would have some troubles dealing with reavers or stormcasts.

[Sleboda]

@Biboune 

Maybe. Interestingly, she had been doing Killax's strategy already - double move, stay away, etc.  Had Shardcaller and keys right away.  Basically, it all set up perfectly and in accordance with what Killax thought was the best approach.  She still lost 15 (high score so far in our group) to 8.

 

We just finished another game.  I, as the Orruk player, only killed two models (petitioners).  I then stepped into her territory and sat there.  She retreated, tried to play Objectives.  

I won 11 to 6.

I pretty much never attacked.  I had Containment, Brawl, and Ard As Iron at the end and so I picked up 8 Glory at the end by just sitting there.

 

[Sleboda]

Update.

3 more games.

She tried three different approaches with the undead.  I just played the Orruk deck she normally uses.

I won all three.

14-6

6-4

10-2

 

She's going back to Orruks.  I am moving on the Reavers. The undead experiment is over until more cards or revised cards come out.

[Goblin-King]

9 hours ago, Sleboda said:

We just finished another game.  I, as the Orruk player, only killed two models (petitioners).  I then stepped into her territory and sat there.  She retreated, tried to play Objectives.  

She didn't slay your fighters with Harvester, Champion and the Guard?!?
Those guys hit super hard. Especially Champion who has Cleave right of the bat.

Just because SG plays objectives, doesn't mean they shouldn't be hyper aggressive against intruders.

[Sleboda]

She tried, but Orruks have 4 wounds, so no one-hit-kills. Then I hit back and do 3 damage with Gurzag or even a one-upgrade Bonekutta. Then she's on the back foot, trying to bring models back to life at the expense of movement or other attacks. If she brings a guy back, I just one hit kill again, getting Glory again.  It's a losing cycle.

Undead cannot match Orruks in combat. 

[Killax]

Well I certainly agree that it's very difficult for Undead to beat Orruks in melee combat, will still say it's possible but yes several things have to be done in order to make it all work, boardchokes, Shardfall's and all. I do completely agree with continue to test out different Warbands also. In my opinion we have some counters to each other but when we have 8 Warbands things should become really interesting. 

What's essential to keep in mind as a baseline for Sepulchral Guard is that relaxed Round 1's reward them very well and several melee orientated Upgrades work just as well for them too. To me Shardcaller is a keeper regardless but the Keys will indeed not do anything for you against very aggressive Warbands, this includes Orruks but also Reavers. In order to combat that it's actually not difficult to switch Keys to Daemonic Weapon and Shardglass Sword again to have sufficient damage output. It's all a matter of preforance.

A think I can say is that mixed stratagies are simply put harder to punish as going one route. Which make mixed Objective strategies absolutely not bad or worse as one route strategies.

[Requizen]

I'm pretty even against Orruks so far, generally comes down to card draw and dice. You can't shy away from combat, even just using Petitioners to try and Knockback is worthwhile. Using the Warden correctly is key against Orruks, since he's the only one rocking a Damage 3 weapon, and his Upgrade with Cleave is so, so good. 

[Bowlzee]

I played my first match wit the SG last night. I won 2-0 (9-4, 9-2) against the Bloodreavers.

I love the unit. I played extremely defensive and focused on the Objectives. I definitely think leaving the Prince out as bait is the best way, he's not that great unless he's inspired.

My opponent had never played vs SG and we're both pretty new, so I'm under no illusions that I will keep winning  Having said that, I'm currently unbeaten in Shadespire..... played 4 games, won 3, drew 1 :p 

My Deck:

Objectives:

• Hold Objectives 1-5
• Tactical Supremacy 1-2 & 3-4
• Supremacy
• Ploymaster
• Determined Defender
• Denial
• Battle Without End

Ploys

• Confusion
• Swift Evasion
• Sprint
• Restless Dead
• Sidestep
• Illusory Fighter
• Clawing Hands
• Danse Macabre
• Terrifying Screams
• Fortify

Upgrades

• Frightening Speed
• Great Speed
• The Dazzling Key
• The Shadowed Key
• Undying
• Ancient Commander
• Soultrap
• Remembered Shield
• Great Fortitude
• Shardcaller

Probably pretty similar to everyone else's deck

Ploys:

• Clawing Hands was never useful, whenever I was attacking I would generally have support anyway. I've swapped this with Shardfall
• Terrifying Scream was so useful I've swapped Confusion with Distraction to gain an extra push
• Fortify sounds great, but generally my fighters have support anyways. I've opted to replace this with Cruel Taunt, as there are some scary Inspired models out there

Ovjectives:

• I will drop Ancient Commander. Being able to move 3 friendly fighters is great but I rarely had need to move more than 2. I've replaced with Shadeglass Darts to give a camping model some range
• I really want to take Great Strength to help one shot some models but struggling to think of something to swap. I'm tempted to play more than 10 Upgrades/ploys but I'd then need to buy another pack of SG Sleeves 

All the other cards served me very well during the games, so will keep them for now.

[Killax]

What can I say! Very solid deck and I feel that Sepulchral Guard orientated to Objectives are currently the way to go with them. 
Having said that it's certainly possible to drop the Keys and include some more weaponry too.

As I do expect a Key for every Objective I do think Sepulchral Guard will end up being very interesting in the end, I can't wait to see what the new cards will be.

[Bowlzee]

The keys have done really well for me, but agree I think I might need some weapon upgrades. 

I like the idea of Daemonic Weapon on the Harvester, as. He still gets to hit all models adjacent to him with it. 

[Biboune]

I am not sure to understand what you said, but if you meant that the Harvester can hit everyone around with the Daemonic Weapon I think you are wrong: hitting every one around is about his basic attack action, not something he does no matter what attack action he does.

[Requizen]

Biboune is correct on that. 

Personally I've eschewed all attack upgrades and only have movement and objective based ones. Only offensive ones are Lethal Lunge because it's really good, and Fatal Riposte on The Champion because I had another Upgrade to fill and it makes people wary of killing him. 

Working with a 22 Power deck just because I want to have Daylight Robbery, even though I fail that roll way too much for a 1/2 chance. 

[Bowlzee]

6 hours ago, Requizen said:

Biboune is correct on that. 

Personally I've eschewed all attack upgrades and only have movement and objective based ones. Only offensive ones are Lethal Lunge because it's really good, and Fatal Riposte on The Champion because I had another Upgrade to fill and it makes people wary of killing him. 

Working with a 22 Power deck just because I want to have Daylight Robbery, even though I fail that roll way too much for a 1/2 chance. 

It's an action on his card, not an action on the weapon.

So can hit all adjacent models with whatever weapon stats you put on him.

[Goblin-King]

28 minutes ago, Bowlzee said:

It's an action on his card, not an action on the weapon.

So can hit all adjacent models with whatever weapon stats you put on him.

I can see how you would think that, but it's just not correct. We often see special rules written just below an attack - like cleave or knockback.
The reason why this is different I guess, is because they just don't have a keyword for "Targets all adjacent fighters - roll for each".

Notice he has an attack called "Whirling Scythe".
In the textbox to the right he has a special rule, yes... With the headline "Whirling Scythe". It's an elaboration of what that particular attack does. Not a general special rule.
But like I said, they don't have a convenient keyword to put under the attack, so they have to put it in the textbox instead.

If he want to hit all adjacent, he has to use his basic "Whirling Scythe" attack.

[Requizen]

You can see the same thing on Severin Insipired or Karsus the Chained. They both have two profiles, one of which is clearly better than the other, but the text for the AoE attack clearly denotes which one it works with. 

[Bowlzee]

Thanks for this! I will check the card as soon as possible. Didn't know the keyword was in there. 

Not as useful as I first thought

[ReynakZhen]

So I was just thinking of a way to at least mitigate the Sepulchral Guard's issue of being a glory point farm. How about the petitioners not scoring glory for opponents when they're taken out of action? That way SG players can use them as blockers without worrying  about powering up the opponents they're blocking when the petitioners die? 

Any thoughts on trying this out?

Edit: If the above proves too powerful, then a rule can be to make it so that petitioners cannot receive upgrades at all.

[Goblin-King]

To be honest I'm not quite convinced they need "fixing".
I tend to stick both my objectives and petitioners as far back as possible.
Any invading force will have to fight through the formidable trio of Warden, Champion and Harvester before they can start grinding glory on petitioners.
I've not yet lost a game where I thought it was because of petitioners giving "free" glory.

To be fair, I haven't played as many games as I would have liked...

[Requizen]

If the opponent is farming Glory off your guys, I think it's an error in your positioning than it is a failing of the army. Yes, Petitioners are weak and rezing them will give your opponent more potential Glory, but thy should either be sitting safely back where they're not getting instagibbed, or they should be bait to get your opponent into bad positions. Any army is going to hemorrhage Glory if their pieces are getting traded away for nothing. 

 

ION, is anyone using Tactical Supremacy cards? I have them because I'm Objective focused, but I can't help but feel like I'm tossing them more often than not. The potential 2 Glory jump is great, but they feel much less reliable than other Objectives.

[Sleboda]

The whole band is a glory farm. Too easy to one-shot pretty much across the board.

The only one that has some survivability is the Warden,  and if you expose him you get pounced on and lose. 

Undead are really, really cool but also really easy to defeat after you understand them (luck aside).

[Requizen]

I've been playing Guard for a while and haven't found them weaker than others. Maybe it's a discrepancy in player skill but I feel like the greater toolbox of the Guard gives them the flexibility to respond to many opponents. I haven't felt like I'd been "figured out" and had no chance of winning because of that, though I've got a couple tournaments this month and that could change.

[Sleboda]

Do you generally play to the objective tiles,  and if so,  are ppl just not bumping you off them for easy disruption of your plans? 

[Requizen]

I do play objective token focused, and don't often feel like I can just get bullied off. Generally, I place objectives in such a position that 2 or more models can get to it, that way if one gets bopped, you can support it. I also run Sidestep and Shifting Shards so I have a backup in case I get knocked off of an important one. 

You can easily lose games in setup as Guard if you mess up, though. Place boards, objectives, or fighters incorrectly, and you're really done. Victory with this style of play comes from movement more than anything else, planning ahead as to how many models you need to move and where, as well as what your opponent can do to prevent you from achieving that goal. Learning what to sacrifice and when is also a large consideration. 

If an opponent Moves adjacent to something on an objective and threatens to attack it next turn and knock it off, I can always knockback that opponent by attacking first, charging it with another fighter, using Distraction/Terrifying Screams to move them out of range, etc. If they Charge a model on an Objective and knock it off, I can move another fighter onto it, comfortable that his model can no longer attack (generally speaking, Ploys aside). I also know which fighters of the opponent can one-shot which of my fighters, so I should never really be surprised when a model dies. 

Basically, there are 12 activations per side, 4 per turn. Imo if you want to be a good Guard player (or really Shadespire in general but Guard in particular), you need to be able to know and predict what your opponent can do with 4 activations and plan around it. I rarely find myself caught off guard by something my opponent does.

That doesn't mean I always win or am always in an advantageous position, but when something bad does happen it should have been thought of in the realm of possibility and made into a calculated risk. Sorry if that's a bit vague but I just generally obsess over what everything can do and what cards are generally used, so I can be aware of the potential outcomes of a given round. That Orruk is out of range unless he uses Sidestep, etc.

[Bowlzee]

I've played quite a few games with SG, and don't find I have an issue with Petitioners being a glory farm. I have played about 7 games, and haven't lost yet. I'm averaging 11-14 Glory a game with an objective based deck.

[Sleboda]

9 hours ago, Bowlzee said:

I've played quite a few games with SG, and don't find I have an issue with Petitioners being a glory farm. I have played about 7 games, and haven't lost yet. I'm averaging 11-14 Glory a game with an objective based deck.

I totally don't mean this in the jerky way it might sound....

 

So, Mr. Winner, share your awesome winning plans with us.

 

Seriously, I did very, very well with my SG right up until my Orruk opponents figured out that destroying objectives, moving models off of them with ploys, and shardcalling totally gutted my chances to succeed.  That doesn't even take into account them figuring out they should not kill the Champion or Harvester.