GW joined the likes of Magic the Gathering and FFG with their new Banned & Restricted List for Warhammer Underworlds. Here’s what the new changes mean!
Games Workshop has finally done it with their deck building/miniatures board game, Warhammer Underworlds. What’s banned and what’s restricted you ask? Let’s break it all down.
In the middle of Season two, GW went ahead and banned 3 cards from being used in organized play and restricted another 26 cards. What’s interesting to note is that all the banned and restricted cards are from the universal sets- showing they still want you to use a chunk of the unique warband cards for your decks.
Love it or hate it the banned/restricted cards are here to stay so let’s look at the cards and see what we can make of it.
Banned:
- Great Concussion (Farstriders Expansion): (Ploy) Choose a hex on the battlefield, then push all fighters one hex (in whichever order you choose). This push must move them away from the chosen hex. If there is no hex you could push a fighter into, do not push them.
- Quick Thinker (Farstriders Expansion): (Ploy) Reaction: Play this after a friendly fighter’s Move action. Make a Move action with a friendly fighter who has not already made a Move action in this phase.
- Time Trap (Sepulchral Guard Expansion): (Ploy) Choose a fighter. They can take an action. Skip your next activation (you cannot play this card after your fourth activation)
I completely agree with Quick Thinker and Time Trap-both of those cards needed to be removed from the game as they ruined the spirit. For example, Time Trap let you charge someone and hit them, then use that card and then that same character that charged could then swing again because it is not an activation as this is done in the power step. It breaks the game in that Shadespire is very much a competitive ‘I go, you go’ game and getting to take two turns in a row can end the game with a single card.
With Quick Thinker, it essentially nullifies one of your opponent’s 12 activations. That is not fair in a game where you only get 12 turns. You’re basically telling your opponent if you make a Charge, I am going to counter that with quick thinker. It’s not fun to be on the receiving end and any deck that didn’t have the card should.
The one I’m a little confused about is Great Concussion. While it is powerful, it is no more powerful than something like Earthquake. Maybe it’s because while Earthquake and others all go in the same direction this one would let you play it to maneuver your opponents’ models so that they’re all next to your models for easy attacks.
Restricted Cards (no more than 5 in a deck total)
Restricted Objectives:
- Advancing Strike (1 Glory) (Farstriders Expansion): Score this immediately when your warband takes an enemy fighter standing in enemy territory out of action.
- Alone in the Darkness (2 Glory) (Spiteclaw’s Swarm Expansion): Score this in an end phase if there are no adjacent fighters on the battlefield.
- Change of Tactics (1 Glory) (Farstriders Expansion): Score this immediately if a friendly fighter on Guard makes a Charge action.
- Defensive Strike (1 Glory) (Farstriders Expansion): Score this immediately when your warband takes an enemy fighter standing in your territory our of action.
- Escalation (2 Glory) (Spiteclaw’s Swarm Expansion): Score this in an end phase if three or more upgrade cards were played in the preceding action phase.
- Extreme Flank (2 Glory) (Zarbag’s Gitz Expansion): Score this in an end phase if there is a friendly fighter on an edge hex and another friendly fighter on an edges hex on the opposite edge of the battlefield to the first fighter. Where there is more than one opposite edge, it must be the furthest of these edges.
- Fired Up (1 Glory) (Eyes of the Nine Expansion): Score this in an end phase if at least one surviving friendly fighter is Inspired.
- Loner (1 Glory) (Eyes of the Nine Expansion): Score this in an end phase if at least one surviving friendly fighter has no other fighter within three hexes.
- Perfect Planning (1 Glory) (Chosen Axes Expansion): Score this in an end phase if none of your fighter made a Move action in the preceding action phase.
- Precise Use of Force (1 Glory) (Chosen Axes Expansion): Score this immediately if a friendly fighter makes a successful Attack action that deals exactly enough damage to take their target out of action.
I can see why most of these are in the restricted cards because they generally make up 90% of the objective cards in nonobjective decks. They are all easy to score and will let you go through your objective deck quickly. It really did force you to keep playing an aggressive style of deck and really put an unfair advantage against decks that did not run these cards. Also I see by restricting these cards if forces the aggressive deck builds out there to look at other ways to score glory that might not be so automatic.
Restricted Gambits:
- Earthquake (Chosen Axes Expansion): Push all fighters one hex. You must push them all in the same direction. Any that cannot be pushed this way are
- Illusory Fighter (Sepulchral Guard Expansion): Choose one of your fighters on the battlefield. Place them on a starting hex in your territory.
- My Turn (Magore’s Fiends Expansion): Play this after an Attack action or ploy that damages a friendly fighter.
- Pit Trap (Zarbag’s Gitz Expansion): Play this after an Attack action that drives an enemy fighter back. They suffer 1 damage.
- Ready for Action (Chosen Axes Expansion): Reaction: Play this after you upgrade a fighter in an action phase. They can make a Move or Attack action.
- Trap (Chosen Axes Expansion): Reaction: Play this during a friendly fighter’s Attack action that drives an enemy back. The enemy fighter suffers 1 damage.
- Twist the Knife (Farstriders Expansion): Reaction: Play this during a friendly fighter’s Attack action that has a Range of 1 and will succeed. It has +1 Damage for that Attack action.
I can certainly see the strength of the instant damage effect that are half of these gambits. They’re basically letting you deal free damage, which is powerful. While the rest let you control the board or get a free attack action, which is like getting a free activation. Again, in tournament play, most of these cards were in every nonobjective based deck, and if you were not running them you were playing at a disadvantage. These are probably the biggest challenge to current deck builders to work around outside of the banned decklists.
Restricted Upgrades:
- A Destiny to Meet (Farstriders Expansion): If this fighter is not out of action at the end of the third action phase, gain 1 additional glory point.
- Awakened Weapon (Spiteclaw’s Swarm Expansion): You can re-roll one attack dice each time this fighter makes an attack action.
- Helpful Whispers (Sepulchral Guard Expansion): If this fighter has no adjacent friendly fighters, rolls of “half circle” are a success when they make an Attack action.
- Incredible Strength (Farstriders Expansion): +1 Damage to all Attack action with a Range of 1 or 2.
- Shadeglass Dagger (Magore’s Fiends Expansion): Range 1, 3 Duel Swords Attack Dice, for 3 Damage. When an Attack action rolls “critical” discard this upgrade and this Attack action has +1 Damage.
- Shadeglass Hammer (Spiteclaw’s Swarm Expansion): Range 1, 2 Hammers Attack Dice, for 3 Damage. When an Attack action rolls “critical” discard this upgrade and this Attack action has +1 Damage.
- Slumbering Key (Garreks Reavers Expansion): If this fighter is not out of action in the third end phase, gain 1 glory token.
- Soultrap (Sepulchral Guard Expansion): Reaction: During an Attack action or ploy that takes this fighter out of action, roll a defense dice. If the result would not normally be a success for this fighter, ignore the damage from that Attack action on this fighter.
- Tethered Spirit (Magore’s Fiends Expansion): Reaction: During an Attack action or ploy that takes this fighter out of action, roll a defense dice. If you roll a “shield” or a “critical” place them on any starting hex in your territory, ignore the damage and discard this upgrade (they cannot be driven back). If you cannot, they are taken out of action.
In this list I can for sure see restricting the Shadeglass Hammer and Dagger as they hit hard and can possibly 1 shot all characters in the game. With Soultrap and Tethered Spirit, I can also see these as being restricted because they basically give you a 50% to not die and potentially take away one of your opponent’s activations. With the A Destiny to Meet and Slumbering Key, I am not sure I agree with those being super powerful.
Sure, bonus glory is good but that is hardly game breaking. Awakened Weapon and Helpful Whispers are some of the best upgrades to a lower model count aggressive warband, so I can see those being used in every deck and understand why GW wanted to add them to this list.
Overall, I think the banned cards are right on the money (minus Concussion). They destroyed the spirit of the game. I am also pleased with the list of restricted cards, though I feel like GW did it more to spice up deck building rather than game breaking. I whole hardly agree with that, playing against the same deck repeatedly is not much fun. It also gives newer players a chance against veterans. Even if the vets have the most powerful cards they can’t use them all in their deck at once.
I just hope Restricted the list doesn’t get crazy long or anything. That adds more of a challenge to tournament organizers who need to do a deck inspection. Also, hopefully, this makes the card writers think about the cards before they release them a little bit because nobody wants to buy an expansion and have 2-3 cards out of it already banned.
