lillumultipass Posted July 25, 2019 Share Posted July 25, 2019 Hi everyone, I have been looking for a miniature game for quite some time, hesitating between this, Aristeia and now the KS for Super Fantasy Brawl. As I may be able to get a second hand collection (not full but rather complete) at a reasonable price, here I am asking some questions :* One thing that have always made me hesitant about the game is the inherent randomness of both dices and cards. I love cards as I have played CCGs all my life and I don’t mind dice usually, as long as I feel that my decisions are what ultimately win or lose me the game. Here I have the impression that the variance must be huge given dual randomness of drawing cards in a certain order and rolling dices. What do you think ? Does skill really matter? Compared to other games, such as, say Heroclix, Aristeia, Mythic Battle Pantheon…would you say WHU is more or less random ? Do you feel like you have a lot of "agency" during your plays wth respect to what you can do ? I usually tend to like thinky games* How good is the deckbuilding ? Are decks varied for each warband or each warband tend to have a certain style that restricts deckbuilding (I understand they all must have a certain style to some extent…I wonder just what leeway there is for the deckbuilder). Btw, are the different warbands really different in terms of what they can do on the field? I remember a while back when I saw the first warbands finding them a bit "bland" in terms of powers. Also, are different styles represented (like Control ? I used to be a Blue-White player in MTG and usually like to play a more controllish game). * A related question : how is the meta in general ? Meaning that, are there clear powerhouse cards or even worse warbands and other that are unplayable ? Or has it been varied overall in your XP ? * Are there some strategy discussions about warbands or cards ? I haven't seen a lot here (although I did discover a new website, wellofpower.com which looks cool) thanks ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riddlesworth Posted July 26, 2019 Share Posted July 26, 2019 15 hours ago, lillumultipass said: * One thing that have always made me hesitant about the game is the inherent randomness of both dices and cards. I love cards as I have played CCGs all my life and I don’t mind dice usually, as long as I feel that my decisions are what ultimately win or lose me the game. Here I have the impression that the variance must be huge given dual randomness of drawing cards in a certain order and rolling dices. What do you think ? Does skill really matter? Compared to other games, such as, say Heroclix, Aristeia, Mythic Battle Pantheon…would you say WHU is more or less random ? Do you feel like you have a lot of "agency" during your plays wth respect to what you can do ? I usually tend to like thinky games While there will always be randomness related to dice and card draw, you can draw 15 cards in the game without mulliganing your first hand, using activations to draw or having any card draw in the deck itself. So 20 card decks and making hard calls about what to keep in your hand means draw variance can be mitigated to a large extent. In terms of dice, there are play styles that eliminate dice rolling altogether to achieve your objectives and there are plenty of cards to push the dice variance in your favour. Positioning, when to play cards and action choice are huge and is the reason you see the same names appearing over and over finishing highly at Grand Clash events. 15 hours ago, lillumultipass said: * How good is the deckbuilding ? Are decks varied for each warband or each warband tend to have a certain style that restricts deckbuilding (I understand they all must have a certain style to some extent…I wonder just what leeway there is for the deckbuilder). Btw, are the different warbands really different in terms of what they can do on the field? I remember a while back when I saw the first warbands finding them a bit "bland" in terms of powers. Also, are different styles represented (like Control ? I used to be a Blue-White player in MTG and usually like to play a more controllish game). The predominant styles that have been emerging in the UK meta are aggro and defensive. Control in Underworlds tends to be more focused on holding objectives and certain warbands do that quite well (Thorns of the Briar Queen and Goblins with movement cards). What we have seen as the game has progressed is that certain cards become staples in decks over the course of the season and the Banned/Restricted list appears regularly to freshen up the meta and see new cards emerge. We have had 2 occasions where a BAR list came out VERY quickly after a card release because the playtesting hadn't revealed the true power level of the cards in combination with neutrals and other warbands. If you can cope with that as a Magic player, you'll be fine. In terms of blandness, the design space for the season 2 warbands opened up a lot and see see much more variance in their specific abilities. In general, I wouldn't be advising anyone buy Season 1 warband expansions right now just because there is a slight chance of Season 1 neutral cards being cycled out sometime in Season 3. 15 hours ago, lillumultipass said: * A related question : how is the meta in general ? Meaning that, are there clear powerhouse cards or even worse warbands and other that are unplayable ? Or has it been varied overall in your XP ? There are various tier lists available. In general, Mollog's Mob, Stormsire's Cursebreakers, Ylthari's Guardians and Thundrik's Profiteers are seen as top tier. However, The gap between the warbands tends to be quite tight. Many people disregarded Reavers for most of the Shadespire season but by the time all the cards were released, they were a real threat. Same thing happened with Godsworn Hunt, who took 3 of the top 16 spots at the recent Grand Clash at WHW. Zarbag's Gitz, for example, are very difficult to play because of all their moving parts but have incredible glory scoring potential. The only warbands that seem to really struggle at the moment are Chosen Axes (because their inspire mechanic is a PITA and they NEED to inspire) and Eyes of the 9 (because they are a....poorly....designed warband). The most recent BAR list took a boot to some of the top tier lists so the new meta will be interesting. For casual play or local metas, it should be relatively even so player skill comes to the fore. 15 hours ago, lillumultipass said: * Are there some strategy discussions about warbands or cards ? I haven't seen a lot here (although I did discover a new website, wellofpower.com which looks cool) https://wigglehammer.wordpress.com/ - Wigglehammer has combined pretty much all of the Underworlds blogs, YouTube channels and content out there. Well worth a bookmark as you get into the game. Oh, and welcome! 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lillumultipass Posted August 5, 2019 Author Share Posted August 5, 2019 thanks for your reply ! I did take the plunge 😉 However, this forum does not seem very active and neither seems Reddit nor BGG. Is there other forums which are more active ? thanks ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannibal Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Hi, just to give you my impressions: 1.) Deckbuilding. It´s all about your "group". Do they go the most competetive route? Then yes, you have to get a huge chunk of cards to compete. I´d say at least starter boxed set + 3-4 warbands to get a good amount of high class cards. If you like to introduce other players and want to have a good time, just get the starter boxed set and the 2 Warbands you´re most intrested in and you can have some pretty good games. 2.) Randomness. The double rondomness is something that thrills me heavily. You just have to see what your cards allow and play accordingly rather than have a plan in mind and trying to achieve it with the cards your hand offers. It´s rather a second layer of resource management that a second layer of randomness. Overall my opion on randomness is: if you like to have a good game for weekly gaming nights or for some chilled games with your friends, randomness is a good thing, just play the game and have fun. See what happens in game and appreciate it. If you like to be THE competetive player, randomness is a bad thing. It´s all up to you. 3.) Miniature Games at a whole. In my humble opinion, Shadespire is a good start because of the low investment to start. A starter set and 2 warbands ist pretty cheap and gives you plenty of different games. You don´t need more than that. The reason why I advice additional warbands in addition to the starter set is the fact that different warbands offer different styles of play. For example Magore´s Fiends are THE aggro warband right now, Thundriks Profiteers seem to excell at shooting. But there are also other games around, and good ones too! Blood Bowl is one of the best miniatures board games I´ve ever seen! Though the average game length is higher than Shadespire. The new Warcry offers everything I´ve been searching for a long time. Randomly determined scenarios, easy rules, low model count, no "alpha strike" shenanigans, a great boxed set that offers almost everything you need. Though the preparation of the game (building and painting) needs way more time. Killteam is also pretty good. But you should start with Elites too. Low model count, different scenarios. Though it offers harder to get by rules. And there are other brands... SAGA is one of the best games I´ve ever played, Zombicide seems to be a great game, Malifaux offers great miniatures and is easy to get into moneywise,... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zilberfrid Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 One thing I should mention, is that if you are not ready to take the plunge in a Warhammer army, but are interested, Underworld is a very good way to get to know them. I purchased the Eyes of the Nine for my girlfriend, so she can make them and check the painting scheme before committing to more Tzeench, I have heard more people liking Saga, but also about Frostgrave, which has excellent models and is model agnostic (like Saga), which helps if you are interested in more different things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiotrW Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 5 hours ago, zilberfrid said: One thing I should mention, is that if you are not ready to take the plunge in a Warhammer army, but are interested, Underworld is a very good way to get to know them. I purchased the Eyes of the Nine for my girlfriend, so she can make them and check the painting scheme before committing to more Tzeench. A girlfriend who plays! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ 7 hours ago, lillumultipass said: thanks for your reply ! I did take the plunge 😉 Now take a plunge into Aristeia! And Infinity And AoS, of course. And Dragon Rampant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zilberfrid Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 1 minute ago, PiotrW said: A girlfriend who plays! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ A girlfriend who got me into warhammer, even (even though she assumed I would go for 40k). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PiotrW Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 8 minutes ago, zilberfrid said: A girlfriend who got me into warhammer, even (even though she assumed I would go for 40k). *faints* There are no wargaming women here... 😕 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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