Winning with sepulchral guard?

[Velvetelvis]

Hopefully this isn't an all too common concern. But I'm new to the game and I'm finding the guard to be basically ineffective. 

Now, to be fair, I don't think it's the guards fault. I guarantee I'm doing it wrong. 

But ,I'm wondering what " doing it right " even looks like.

Is the faction just back burner material compared to what's out and about now or can it work?

So...what I mean is, I'm not looking for anything hyper specific like  an exact build. But more of a " should I continue to pursue it or move on and play a different warband."?

 

 

[PlayerJ]

I ran them at the Adepticon Grand Clash and came in 9th place.

Imo to run the guard effectively you'll have to learn how to play your deck against multiple different opponent types.

But when I have them working as I want, they're super fun, can be quite competitive, and good in most match ups.

[Sleboda]

They are very, very fun. And very, very non-competitive.  Play them and enjoy them, but don't expect to win much with them.

[Goblin-King]

I run mine with all-in hold objectives for my objective deck. This strategy can net you a lot of glory, but is easily disrupted by drive back and push-ploys.
The thing is, your elite fighters are actually pretty scary. Champion has cleave and Harvester can hit multiple targets.
Just add enough upgrades and ploys to make them effective, and stuff the rest of your power deck with stuff that helps you get and hold objectives.

A generic tip - never do anything if it doesn't help you achieve glory. Don't resurrect a fighter unless he still has a purpose and can be set up to hold objectives or kill something. Don't attack something unless you can kill it - or at least follow up and kill it with something else. Pot shots are usually a waste of activations imo. Don't move a dude "just because". Pick a card instead.

[Sleboda]

4 hours ago, Goblin-King said:

A generic tip - never do anything if it doesn't help you achieve glory. Don't resurrect a fighter unless he still has a purpose and can be set up to hold objectives or kill something. Don't attack something unless you can kill it - or at least follow up and kill it with something else. Pot shots are usually a waste of activations imo. Don't move a dude "just because". Pick a card instead.

Excellent advice.  Never push pawns.

[CanHammer-darren]

I think Guard is the hardest warband to play. Definitely not for new players. They are strong but finesse warband. Being faced with so many possible actions introduces so much analysis paralysis to the inexperienced played. I feel I started to get the hang of it after about 15 games. Deployment is also key given low movement. And board placements is key

[Velvetelvis]

On 4/9/2018 at 11:06 PM, PlayerJ said:

I ran them at the Adepticon Grand Clash and came in 9th place.

Imo to run the guard effectively you'll have to learn how to play your deck against multiple different opponent types.

But when I have them working as I want, they're super fun, can be quite competitive, and good in most match ups.

I switched to your deck ,and got a couple wins under my belt. Much needed morale boost.

So yes. I absolutely feel that action paralysis.  I have no idea what I should be doing most of the time. But I did learn that "attack someone" is usually not what to do. Better to draw a card.

[PlayerJ]

26 minutes ago, Velvetelvis said:

I switched to your deck ,and got a couple wins under my belt. Much needed morale boost.

So yes. I absolutely feel that action paralysis.  I have no idea what I should be doing most of the time. But I did learn that "attack someone" is usually not what to do. Better to draw a card.

That's Awesome!

[Carnelian]

Could you share your deck for other struggling guard players ?

[Skellisquad]

This was the 9th place Adepticon

https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,59,263,264,265,266,267,292,257,284,253,254,83,376,73,425,426,409,348,374,310,368,87,332,85,336,77,71,80,69,391,321,272

 

Objectives (12)
59 - Battle Without End
253 - Denial
254 - Determined Defender
257 - Escalation
263 - Hold Objective 1
264 - Hold Objective 2
265 - Hold Objective 3
266 - Hold Objective 4
267 - Hold Objective 5
272 - Master of War
284 - Precise Use of Force
292 - Supremacy

Ploys (10)
69 - Ceaseless Attacks
71 - Danse Macabre
73 - Restless Dead
77 - The Necromancer Commands
310 - Confused Priorities
321 - Earthquake
332 - Illusory Fighter
336 - Last Chance
348 - Ready for Action
368 - Time Trap

Upgrades (10)
80 - Deathly Charge
83 - Frightening Speed
85 - Lethal Lunge
87 - Undying
374 - Acrobatic
376 - Awakened Weapon
391 - Great Strength
409 - Shadeglass Axe
425 - The Blazing Key
426 - The Dazzling Key

[Carnelian]

Awesome thanks!

I've found denial very hard to pull of with skellies. How do you stop orruks or khorne or stormcast (in fact anyone except duardin) getting in?

[Goblin-King]

1 minute ago, Carnelian said:

Awesome thanks!

I've found denial very hard to pull of with skellies. How do you stop orruks or khorne or stormcast (in fact anyone except duardin) getting in?

My guess: You don't, but potential easy score against other hold-objective teams.

[PlayerJ]

Or you kill them, they way i run the deck is Aggressive Objectives

[Attackmack]

I only played SG a few times, all against an offensive Steelheart deck. At first I tried staying away from the stormcasts as best I could, sending my petitioners to die while trying to score some objectives with the rest. It didnt work at all, not even if I got to place 3 objectives, and if the opponent got 3 then forget about it.

So I mixed it up, making sure all my heavyhitters was ready for action, and instead using the petitioners to claim objectives and occasionally support the others, and things started going much better! The champion is AMAZING against Stormcasts with its cleave! And the Warden, IF you can afford to waste activations on his attacks, is fantastic to have at range striking with 2-2-2!

One round I even managed to take both steelheart and obryn off the table! That was a very lucky round though, the SC didnt get any decent early objectives and botched the dice whenever they were rolled.

 

Which leads to a second observation. Earlier ive only played Steelheart vs Garreks and both are good fighting/killing warbands. The decks and dice kind of even out between the two, making luck less of a factor in my experience.

But SG vs Steelheart gave luck a whole different force. Probably due to my decks being rather narrow but a bad draw at the beginning and at least the SG can be severely crippled immediately. They dont share the SCs advantage of being able to move in for a quick kill to score an early glory, so unless they get good objectives at the start they gonna fight uphill.

 

Overall though, playing SC vs SG was very fun! Two vastly different warbands making choices matter so much! And while some dislike when luck messes with you, I can kind of enjoy that aspect of a game

 

[Anthony225]

On 4/16/2018 at 1:27 AM, Skellisquad said:

This was the 9th place Adepticon

https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,59,263,264,265,266,267,292,257,284,253,254,83,376,73,425,426,409,348,374,310,368,87,332,85,336,77,71,80,69,391,321,272

 

Objectives (12)
59 - Battle Without End
253 - Denial
254 - Determined Defender
257 - Escalation
263 - Hold Objective 1
264 - Hold Objective 2
265 - Hold Objective 3
266 - Hold Objective 4
267 - Hold Objective 5
272 - Master of War
284 - Precise Use of Force
292 - Supremacy

Ploys (10)
69 - Ceaseless Attacks
71 - Danse Macabre
73 - Restless Dead
77 - The Necromancer Commands
310 - Confused Priorities
321 - Earthquake
332 - Illusory Fighter
336 - Last Chance
348 - Ready for Action
368 - Time Trap

Upgrades (10)
80 - Deathly Charge
83 - Frightening Speed
85 - Lethal Lunge
87 - Undying
374 - Acrobatic
376 - Awakened Weapon
391 - Great Strength
409 - Shadeglass Axe
425 - The Blazing Key
426 - The Dazzling Key

This build looks really fun. I was thinking of doing an objective based deck with the majority being focused on holding objectives, while the ploys and upgrades mostly focused on killing stuff. Seems like a decent plan to go at both angles. I assume the petitioners don't really get to attack much so it's easier for them to sit back and claim objectives? Even if your opponent focuses on them and uses ploys to move the petitioners around, that's that many less ploys moving your dangerous pieces around. 

With all 8 warbands out now there's even more better cards for SG. Incredible strength can replace deathly charge and A Destiny to Meet is an easy glory. You could even do a little control with invisible walls and the ploy that slows down an enemy based on dead skeletons. Even Inspiration Strikes could be useful to get the Warden inspired right away or to beef up a heavy hitter before charging.

[Velvetelvis]

The whathamacallit that moves a guy from a board edge to a board edge is super handy in that deck.

Deepstriking a petitioner to get backfield objectives is gold.

[Malakree]

It's hard to tell how good they are at the moment because the recent meta is so warped by a single deck type.

Objective SG works but is hyper vulnerable to great concussion dumpstering even one of your end phases.

They actually have some really solid offensive options which haven't been massively explored, this is doubly true given that a lot of aggressive decks don't even care about objectives any more allowing you to go for things like make a statement or claim the city. 

You will need to make sure you can keep your warden alive vs all the modern dive capacity. Hidden paths, quick thinker, distraction, sidestep, illusionary fighter and invisible walls mean you have some amazing choices to try and counter people diving you. Packing some of them will be a boon on their own.

The 1-5 aren't worth it tbh, with all the forced movement around you want to score big every time you do score. Most decks are 5-20 glory range on average, if you can score 3-5 and supremacy that's 6 glory in just those two.

Consider running the neutral glory objectives rather than specify keys, it stops you being screwed by number placement. Formless key and destiny to meet is two far less restrictive glory that say blazing key.

Shifting sands is a FANTASTIC ploy for you, use it to move an upheld objective onto one of your starting hexes, you can now resurrect directly onto it!

Good objective placement is so important, consider placing your first in the opponents territory. If done correctly you can block his second being in his own half, this allows you to make sure at least one of his is in the front of his board not the back giving you better access to it.

Lastly don't underestimate your special fighters, they may not be ironskullz strong but 2 dice 2 damage with cleave is a vicious starting attack. 

 

My favourite part of shadespire has been seeing the different decks all the mad geniuses have come up with. You see someone do something completely different and find yourself saying hu I didn't realise that was a thing....

[dangoow]

Hello,

I just wanted to share my new deck.

Haven t tried it yet but I wanted to make a deck where I can push my champion and harverster on the front line giving them some good buffs while my petitioners grab some objectives if needed.

https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,360,77,69,73,71,329,332,347,348,368,372,373,374,376,395,378,391,381,83,278,254,252,259,62,272,282,284,291,257,301,331,292,412,424,427,393

Can you give me your thought(s) and advice(s) ? would be great.

thanks,

[Requizen]

I've had fairly high success rates with this deck:

https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,257,292,296,297,278,284,252,62,272,282,254,65,395,390,412,369,73,372,361,373,374,410,391,427,318,77,313,349,76,428,424,347

It's pretty hybrid, with 4 Objective based cards and the rest combat/card playing, most of the upgrades and are fighting focused. I've swapped Curious Inversion and Terrifying Screams in and out for things like Hidden Paths/Illusory Fighter/etc, the rest are pretty solidly in place. If I get to place 3 Objectives and/or get 1-2 or 3-4, I usually win pretty big, but the rest of the deck lets me fight and score immediately while pushing towards OOWO/Supremacy for turn 2 or 3.

[Nevar]

Just a comment, but unless they changed it from when I played last, our Champion and Harvester (notice how everyone ignores the Prince?) return from being slain with any equipment they had still on them.  So equipping the champion and having him suicide into the enemy and possibly taking someone with him early, can get you an inspired Champion quickly in the game.

I found this helped after I had seen him ruining other warbands in turn 3, and realized if I got him killed earlier I could have him sooner.  I believe the card is Frightful Speed that lets him move +2 or something like that, so even when he comes back in your own territory a quick charge can get him back into the fight in one activation most times.