WathLab

Hi everyone ! After more than 4 years of careful thinking, intense debating and dozens and dozens of test games, here they are : Please welcome the definitive revamped version of my favourite warband : THE NEW CHOSEN AXES ! The good old Chosen Axes, but better ? What could this mean ? Lots of different things, I guess. And how to achieve this ? So many possible paths to choose from... So, to start at the beginning, here’s an overview of the main design choices I made. Formal Choices Giving the warband a complete 32 cards deck with 12 Objectives, 10 Gambits and 10 Upgrades – as many other old warbands right now they only have access to 31 faction cards and aren’t playable out of the box Modernizing their wording – in order to make them fully compatible with the most recent set of rules Keeping their Season 1 flavor – this time again, I chose not to redo all their cards with the most recent graphic template, mainly as it would have taken me way too much time Design Choices Respecting their original design identity – the warband’s defects (its slowness, its difficult inspiration) as well as its strenghts (its unrivaled capacity to one-shot enemies) Respecting their hybrid nature and a specific balance between Hold-objectives and Aggro playstyles that has no real equivalent Keeping their fighter cards mostly unchanged – when revamping a given set, I’m convinced that removing fighter cards weaknesses changes the warband too much. Instead, I think that you should only give fighters the truly indispensable boosts and help / incite players to use them the right way. « Above all, players need guidance on how to play them » is the main idea I had in mind when I built this new set. Balance Choices Helping them to be more competitive in every format without making them overpowered – a real challenge as the original warband is truly hard-mode Making every card interesting – or at least relevant in some precise match-ups Keeping the challenge intact – I also wanted the warband to remain a fun puzzle and certainly not to become a pure glory engine that would work too well A4 PRINTABLE FILES : https://drive.google.com/file/d/12XIQNRFSLIQz5yxJuTTvSAETQHSLxUrN/view?usp=drive_link DESIGN BOOK : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bDm0m92Rc9yCdygW9-PG7gmjXU3JxiPG/view?usp=drive_link One word about the purpose of this short document : when it comes to custom design, if you don’t know the author’s intentions, it can be hard to judge the value of a work properly. Which I why i thought that this guide was needed. The set you’ll discover here is not a random work but the result of a multitude of deliberate choices, that are related to my understanding of the warband’s core identity and that have been constantly questionned throught deck-building and playtesting over the time. Many thanks to all the players who helped me during this fantastic journey, who accepted to review the set again and again, who helped me question its limits and defects, who played against me, and also, more recently, who played them in the french Vassal league ! Long live to Warhammer Underworlds, and above all, happy games !

Hi everyone ! It's been a while since my last post... but the dwarves are back to the Underworlds ! Today, we'll talk about deck building, and more precisely, about a small revolution... Until now, the warband only had 2 acceptable options for their Rivals deck choice, but as we'll see Voidcursed Thralls changes everything and to pushes the Axes another level... Check it here ! ⚡⚡⚡

JohnnyWolf is right, the Axes are a finesse warband that can be rather complex to play. With The Chosen Axes, your warband will be strong but slow, and can be a bit fragile until your dwarves are Inspired – which takes time and can be quite difficult to achieve ; however, with a good deck and some very simple strategic guidelines in mind, it's also possible to make them work and to turn them into a quite solid warband, that excels at one-shoting enemies. The best way to win with the Chosen Axes is to choose an hybrid path between 2 playstyles : PASSIVE/HOLD-OBJECTIVE, to make sure you inspire your fighters, which is the most important thing for this warband and to score a few glory points along the way AGGRESSIVE, but only once they're inspired, to take advantage of the huge one-shot potential they have After playing hundreds of games with them, I understood what's at stakes with their unique timing... So in most games, my definitive advice would be : During setup, place your feature tokens in order to build yourself a compact and confortable dwarven stronghold in your territory, which will allow you to be safe and to play a kind of counterpunch/more invasive strategy later. Round 1, prioritize inspiration (Fjul and Tefk of course, no more, no less) and glory denial (preventing enemies from killing your fighters, especially the best ones). Early game scoring is nice, but almost optionnal. Round 2, prioritize fights (always try to one-shot enemies) and scoring, then again, inspiration of your other dwarves... Round 3, still prioritize fights and scoring, but also keep a close eye on glory denial. Here are the most competitive decks one can make in Nemesis for the Axes right now : TOOTH AND CLAW https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,117,128,TC5,119,124,125,127,129,130,132,133,136,138,141,142,143,TC1,TC3,TC6,TC7,TC9,TC11,TC12,TC14,TC15,TC16,TC18,TC24,TC27,TC28,TC31,TC32&format=championship FEARSOME FORTRESS https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,FF1,FF2,FF3,FF5,FF7,FF9,FF10,FF11,FF14,FF20,FF21,FF23,FF28,FF29,FF30,FF32,117,119,124,125,128,127,129,130,132,133,135,136,138,141,142,143&format=championship It's written Championship - but no worries, these are Nemesis decks. The dwarves suffer a lot from early game pressure... which is why the Rivals objective deck that's the most coherent with their (theoric) playstyle, Fearsome Fortress, is not the best option : having to hold the center is a really bad idea when you need to secure inspiration of your best fighters AND to hide the others to deny your opponent glory. What are the options against the many highly aggressive warbands (Gnarlspirit, Hexbane, Arenai...) for instance ? - use Fearsome Fortress and quickly die while interacting near no-one's territory... - use TC, play a calm round 1 as usual, then use your killing machines to fill the gap Objectives in Fearsome may be better (even if most of them have big drawbacks...), BUT all the rest is ace in Tooth and Claws. Those 7 cards alone are strong enough to justify the choice of Tooth and Claws : https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,TC1,TC9,TC14,TC32,TC18,TC28,TC24&format=championship They give you paramount things : + 2 excellent passive scoring options that are perfectly coherent with your gameplan (inspire, then wreck faces while disrupting your opponent; and don't try to achieve complex things yourself) + 1 amazing push (you'll need a lot of planification to make it work at it's full potential, but a push 4 is no joke) + 1 amazing accuracy gambit + 1 crazy anti-push upgrade + 1 crazy accuracy upgrade + 1 really good push-control upgrade (Beastcaller) With the approach above, at least you'll stand a chance... it's probably the only way right now.

Hi everyone ! This week, let's go back to strategy ! Will you find the answer to the Tactical Puzzle below ? Will you manage to kill Markov in your next activation ? Feel free to check the answer here ! ⚡⚡⚡

⚡And now my New Chosen Axes are part of a bigger picture !⚡ Here comes BEARDGRAVE, a complete Warhammer Underworlds custom season ! In particular, it includes 4 dwarf warbands designed as variations around the Chosen Axes themselves... If you're interested, feel free to check here : https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerUnderworlds/comments/y65ohk/by_grimnir_please_welcome_beardgrave_a_complete/ Cheers !

⚡Chosen Axes 3.0 finally made their way to the Maze ! ⚡ It's been a looong way to redesign the existing warband and to give it a 32 card set... Still not perfectly satisfied with the result but at least the improvement seems real... and the dwarves are now playable in Rivals ! https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerUnderworlds/comments/we9b0h/chosen_axes_strike_back_again_lets_make_them/

Hi everyone - this week, let's adress an important (and yet underrated imho) subject : one-shotting !

A few examples of cards you can pay attention to : Universal cards like Unafraid, Dominant Position, Path to Victory or Feerless Seekers... Excess of Indolency, Excess of Avidity when you face Dread Pagent for instance. Will of the Slann when facing Lizards. Nexus of Terror when facing Lady Harrows. Unseen Menace when facing Soulraid... etc.

No problem - I'll explain it here then. 1. Glory denial means denying your opponent glory, making it harder for him : - to score his own objectives (pretty easy in a bo3.. in a bo1, guessing what your opponent will try to score early game is trickier but can be done if you pay attention to all the hints, in particular board and fighter placement... AND most importantly if you know the match-up well, in particular in faction objectives) - to reach/kill your frontline fighters early game (and this is also pretty important...). In many Chosen Axes games, a well-timed move action (or a push back, or a guard action) can change a lot of things... An objective card that your opponent doesn't score in a given round does not only mean that its scoring is delayed... it also frequently leads to hand bricking, or to a lower glory score in the end. The importance of this aspect of Underworlds is often underrated. Also note that late game, making strong and calm moves (and not attacking anymore) CAN be the best choice. Sometimes you don't need to try to kill the last enemy fighter at all costs... very often you'll have more to lose at it than your opponent. 2. Indeed they're rare. What I mean here is that at the beginning of Round 2, you should have gone through 2 occasions of sculpting your hand, which is huge : - early game mulligan (if needed) - Round 1 End Phase (to get rid of unscorable cards / cards that are too slow) This way, you'll go quickly through your objective deck, should be ahead by the end of R2, and spend R3 keeping your lead (by scoring a few more objectives AND by keeping denying glory)... Let me know if i helps, and if you need more help (with deckbuilding, with strategy) at some point.

After playing a 6th games against Drepur (won 14 - 11), I made a short reddit post about the deck, that you can check here ! If I can find the time I'll update my board & token placement article in the coming weeks. Happy times!

Oddly enough, it seems that my Chosen Axes journey is not over yet... Only found the time to play 5 games with this deck (Dread Pagent, Morgok's Krushas, Steelheart's Champions, Blackpowder's Bucanneers and Crimson Court), but all of them ended with a dwarf victory ⚡ https://www.underworldsdb.com/shared.php?deck=0,119,124,n299,dc262,dc272,dc273,dc306,dc326,dc336,h219,h226,h227,127,129,130,132,n432,b366,dc366,dc414,h233,h257,136,p55,b398,dc429,dc435,dc445,dc446,dc477,dc478,am21 By Grimnir !

Forget about it everyone ! Problem fixed ! The weird inspiration step rule has been errated ! Now we also have the 2 missing steps : "INSPIRE STEPS In addition to the Inspire steps listed in the Harrowdeep rulebook, there is one Inspire step at the start of the action phase (Elathain’s Soulraid and Morgwaeth’s Blade Coven use this Inspire step) and one Inspire step at the end of the action phase (the Chosen Axes, the Farstriders, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt, the Grymwatch and the Crimson Court use this Inspire step)." That's really cool and was much needed imho. See link below : https://www.warhammer-community.com/faqs/#warhammer-underworlds 🔥

A really important and interesting subject imho. I'll try to summarize what's at stakes below, because I think that it's important for players to be aware of it (also note that there was also this nice discussions on reddit here) : The new rule simply removed inspiration during end phase and defined 2 windows during the action phase as the only moments when fighters become inspired : - during what's called now the activation step - during the power step Now all the warbands that used to inspire during end phase (like Vampires, Farstriders, Ghouls, etc. a dozen total) or at the beginning of the round (like Soulraid), if they meet their inspiration condition in the end of a given round, will have to delay it until after the next activation to become inspired. Many players suggested that the 'But my card says' rule may work here, but sadly it doesn't work because in that case the fighter cards only say when the condition is met. While the general rules say when the inspiration becomes effective from that point. In Direchasm the rule was : "When the Inspire condition on a fighter’s card is met, that fighter becomes Inspired immediately, with the following exceptions etc. etc." While now in Harrowdeep, this sentence has been removed and replaced by another which states that the only moment one can inspire is during the action phase, in the 2 new windows mentionned above. Only exceptions are Profiteers (with Thundrik's Promotion rule), Blade Coven (with Morgwaeth's Blood Sacrement rule) and Madmob, which are completely different things and don't follow the normal Inspiration rule. Note : I think that I'll give GW some feedback about this question at some point (probably when I will have a few more S5 games under my belt). In any case, if someone wants to do it too, use the following mail address : whunderworlds@gwplc.com

Hi everyone ! This week again, let’s go back to strategy ! Recently, I was really busy and was lacking time to play games... but as I can’t stop thinking about Underworlds more than a couple of days ^^, I thought that it could be interesting for me to use this parenthesis to completely renew my understanding of the game... I would choose one theme per month, which I would study in depth during my rare free time. Naturally, I began with one of my favourite subjects : boards and their positioning. I’m pretty sure that most of you remember Steffen Beier’s excellent article on Steelcityunderworlds blog, about how aggro players can have control over objective placement and disrupt hold-objective warbands. My initial thinking was really simple : « Ok, I don’t want any experienced aggro opponent to mess with my set up like this, anymore - can I do something about it ?* » So I begun to think about it during my morning coffee, with all my boards in front of me, then more and more during the my work time... and finally, after a few days of intense but intermittent board studying... I experienced an eureka moment. I must have had a similar intuition already, a long time ago, because now I realize that I was using this tech more or less consciously in most of my games... but I had never been considering it seriously enough to see all its benefits. Immediatly, I made a few tests which confirmed that the idea was really relevant... and then I read the article again on Steelcity, more carefully this time, and realized that this idea was probably a kind of dead angle in Steve’s main tech... As you’ll see, it’s related to the concept of board flexibility and revolves around the idea of generating efficient objective formations whatever the set-up, and this, of course, even if your opponent tries to give you a hand... So around the beginning of last month, I had this germ of an idea. I tried to push it further to see if it was rock solid. I played some more games, saw that it was the case... and finally decided to write a few lines about it... Here’s the final result : https://we.tl/t-HcEmt4geyb To me, it seems obvious that someone else must have found it already and that many experienced played must have noticed it... but as I’ve never seen it explained anywhere (and I’ve read litterally everything xD), who knows ? One last word before you start reading : here, don’t get me wrong and don’t expect a revolution or an answer that would solve everything. What you’ll read in my own article doesn’t fully counters aggro players disruption attempts and has its own defects - in particular as it limits your board choice** - but it definitely helps mitigating their effects and having a better understanding of what’s at stakes. In the end, I’d say that it’s a small but significant thing. But that’s how you make the difference in this game*** ! * I find it really interesting that Steve invented his tech at a time when Hold-Objective was dominating Beastgrave and that I discovered mine this season, when Aggro is utterly dominant... in both cases, a kind of meta counter... ** Note that I’ll limit my analysis to Championship boards... but it doesn’t change anything to the core mechanics I’ll expose here. *** As my quest for board flexibility is linked to the fact I’m a Chosen Axes player, a good part of what you’ll read now is written from a fyreslayer perspective... but its main conclusions are relevant and valid for most of the other warbands (especially non-hordes), provided you’re interested in objective placement and want to have control over it.

Am I the only one seing this as a revolution ? ^^