Let’s walk through the starter box universal cards available for each war band and some tips for beginning to build a custom deck.
Shadespire is taking off across the mortal realms, and while there are currently only four war bands duking it out, more are on the way. Beyond my initial impressions which you can view here, we have begun diving into building out our own decks. This part looks at the universal cards that are included in the CORE SET only and can be used with any war band Games Workshop comes out with.
Universal Objectives:
- Annihilation (5 Glory): Score in end phase if all enemy fighters are out of action
- Conquest (2 glory): Score in third end phase if all your surviving fighters are in opponent’s territory
- Denial (3 Glory): Score this in the third end phase if there are no enemy fighters in your territory
- Hold Objective 1 (1 Glory): Score in end phase if you hold objective 1
- Hold Objective 2 (1 Glory): Score in end phase if you hold objective 2
- Hold Objective 3 (1 Glory): Score in end phase if you hold objective 3
- Hold Objective 4 (1 Glory): Score in end phase if you hold objective 4
- Hold Objective 5 (1 Glory): Score in end phase if you hold objective 5
- Supremacy (3 Glory): Score this in an end phase if you hold three or more objectives
Right off the bat, you need to decide if you are going to go for objectives or not with the way you build up your deck. With small bands, like Steelheart’s Champions and the Ironskull Boyz, you might want to limit the number of objective cards to 3-4 total. Your small model count means there is always going to be some objectives that will be out of your reach. With Garrek’s Reavers or the Sepulchral Guard, you have the movement and massive model count to sometimes get two or three objectives in a phase. If you choose to build you deck that way, defiantly add in a Supremacy objective to get some quick glory as well. With Conquest and Denial, it plays to the style of your warband. If you play your group defensively, take a Denial. If you have a more aggressive play style, take Conquest. You can also go for an Annihilation victory, but that is hard to pull off especially against large model count war bands like Sepulchral Guard. If you do choose to go for Annihilation, you should consider forgoing objectives all together and focus just on aggressive objectives unique to your warband.
Universal Upgrades:
- Disengage: Range 1, 2 dice (hammers), 1 damage. Reaction: On successful attack you can push this fighter one hex.
- Great Fortitude: +1 Wounds
- Great Speed: +1 Move
- Great Strength: +1 Damage to all attack actions
These are standard upgrades in terms of making your warband better without too many special rules. The speed could be of use to the slower moving armies with smaller model count, like the Ironboyz, or a more aggressive Steelheart’s Champions. Increasing damage is always a nice buff to all the war bands. Wound increase can be useful for your leader or someone who might only have 3 wounds, by adding 1 extra they would have way more survivability. This buff is less useful for the 1-2 wound models. Finally, disengage is interesting in that it really lets you get control of the battle field. While only doing 1 damage, it is not there to kill anyone, but it can certainly allow you to move people around the battlefield to get support rolls on your heavy hitters. For most war bands, a couple these are useful against any opponent and in any situation but don’t overload your upgrades options with them.
Universal Ploys:
- Confusion: Switch two fighter that are adjacent to one another
- Healing Potion: A friendly fighter rolls a defense die and on shield or critical heals two wounds, otherwise only heals one
- Shardfall: Place a Shardfall token in unoccupied hex. That hex is blocked until end of the phase
- Sidestep: Push a friendly fighter one hex
- Sprint: Double the Move characteristic of the first friendly model in the next activation. They may not charge or make another activation this phase.
These are all for battlefield control and denying your opponent objectives. For example, use Confusion and Sidestep to get your people out of range after a charge or to grant your fighters support. Larger wound models can greatly benefit from healing potion to possibly raise up their HP to being able to take another heavy attack. Shardfall can be great to block charge paths, or drop it on an objective token to prevent your opponent from scoring it this phase. These can be useful in all the war bands, minus healing potion which leans more towards the Steelheart Champions and Ironboyz war bands as they are more defensive in nature. Picking one of each of these is not a bad idea as they can all be useful to control the battlefield for all the war bands. Personally, I would take a Confusion and a Sidestep for sure and then gauge the kind of war band that I am using to determine if I should take a couple of the others.
There you have it, the universal cards that come in the core set. They are all standard, well-rounded cards that can be useful in any war band. Make sure you have an idea in your head with the type of style you want your war band to play. After that, select your objective cards first then the ploys and upgrades to help you get to scoring those.
Check out more “newbie” tips for the Hobby
About the Author: Travis Perkins
