Warhammer Underworlds Tournament Report: Fighting your Nemesis with Truth and Claw
This is a tournament report about a local event I organized for the tabletop boardgame Warhammer Underworlds. This has been the 6th event of the series, with the 7th iteration already planned for June. For better or worse, the Stuttgart region is now probably the most active Underworlds community in Germany — although I would be happy to be proven wrong (and invite another community over 😊) .
This report has some special sauce to make it extra spicy for you: It’s a back-to-back collaboration with the community member Sleeksbowl on the other side of the ocean. We both played the same warband and basically the same deck at our local events to see whether Xandire’s Truthseekers together with the Rivals Deck Truth & Claw is any good. Check out his article on the deck as well as his results from the tournament he played. I really enjoy this opportunity to share our playing experience!
Truth and Claw
Stylish name, isn’t it? Wasn’t my idea. But hey, I decided to follow along and challenge the dice gods by playing the warband Xandire’s Truthseekers. These are three golden boys and girls as well as one bird. (Must suck for the critter to fight beneath the surface in the twisted realms of Underworlds, because the sky is literally limited.) The bling-ed out Stormcasts are all capable fighters, with Stormrider being probably the best archer in the game and Dhoraz hitting for 3 damage from the get-go. The game plan of this warband is pretty simple: charge into enemy territory — not to save the day, but to burn down your house. Oh, and they get better when they die — which they will. Their biggest drawbacks are low movement, the need to play full aggro, and the bird potentially being free glory for your opponent.
For the Nemesis organized play format we have to throw in another universal Rivals Deck. Tooth and Claw is a perfect supplement to their playstyle, giving us a big boost to accuracy and easy Surge objectives. The end phases are somewhat wonky however, and the final deck has a rather low glory ceiling of 14.
The truth of the claw is that if you don’t hit your attacks you will lose. If you hit with Dhoraz’ three damage attack round one you will probably win. So bring your best dice and make the glory train go chooo-chooo.
Tournament Setup
We played four rounds, with only one game each round, using Swiss pairings and following the Nemesis organized play rules. Ten players signed up, which is a modest number of course. But look, this game is rather niche and to me it’s crazy that so many people are investing their whole Saturday to this (admittedly super fun) experience.
Like basically every tabletop tournament report ever, I eitehr forgot to make any pictures or failed to actually illustate the game state. Instead, I will tell you the gist of it, using the oldschool text-to-brain technique.
Match 1 — Cratos’ Court
The vampires are always a solid pick. You can’t go wrong with four fighters with four wounds and good attacks. Hunger isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still enough to make the vamps go bloodthirsty. Cratos also played Tooth and Claw, so this would be a smackdown.
The game was probably decided round one. Gorath missed Dhoraz, probably stumbling over each other’s names. Dhoraz gets plus one dice by Internal Surrender and lands the hit. Then it was probably Stormrider who followed up with an attack, proving that the dead may indeed die. Prince Duval also surrendered to his instincts, but unfortunately misses his four dice attack on hammers. So does bloodthirsty Vellas on both of her Scything attacks. Sigmar, blessed be your curse upon my enemy’s dice! I manage to score my hand and wound the other vampires, while my opponent couldn’t score anything.
Round two Dhoraz goes down, but I in return remove any undead influence on this part of the underworld. Cratos squeezes out some glory, but my dice haven’t failed me yet. The match ends 11 to 4 for me. Unfortunately this was a frustrating experience for my opponent, as nothing at all worked out for him. Congrats to him for not loosing his fighting spirit and we will get a rematch next week! Also Cratos climbed the ladder onto the fourth place, which is a really good result for his first Underworlds tournament.
Personal takeaway: Once Dhoraz gets plus one dice from Internal Surrender and Xandire plus one damage from Feral Instincts, you can make these golden gals fly. But even three hammers will fail you …. DADADAAAAAAM.
Match 2 — Michel’s Buccaneers
Michel doesn’t want to hear it, but he’s a very good player and can pilot even the most hopeless warbands. And indeed he likes him some underdogs. The pirates aren’t as abysmal as they used to be, and I expected them to score quite well using the Beastbound Assault deck.
My game plan was clear: throw everything at the ogre and push the little guys off objectives. Round one this worked out perfectly, which again should be attributed to Sigmar’s blessing of my dice. My golden ones waltzed in like the fire brigade, taking out Blackpowder himself while keeping the parrot away from the token on the center line. Blackpowder hit Dhoraz before being keelhauled, but Walk It Off basically annulled his attack. This card is very situational, but if it goes off it’s amazing.
Round one was bleak for my opponent, and his dice didn’t improve until it was too late. The game in the end was rather tight, as my objectives came out in the wrong order and at some point I started missing attacks. Michel picked up the pace and started to exchange all the swagger in the world into sweet sweet glory! Well played mate. We ended the second round 15 to 12.
It now was time for our lunch break and I was a little bit nervous — but the exciting kind of nervous. Paul, another regular and skilled player, also had two wins under his belt. So round three would be a kind of semi-finale. He decided last minute to bring the box-fresh Ephilim, which I knew would try to hoard objectives as well as glory. So I spend my time eating french fries and dreading the moment of board selection and token placement.
Match 3 — Paul’s Pandemonium.
After a lot of back and forth in my mind without any clear conclusion, I picked objectives and placed three in my territory. Paul offset the boards, punishing my movement of three. I didn’t have any targets in range at the start of the game. When it was time to mulligan my opponent ditched his objectives, which included most of the hold objectives cards. That was a relief to me.
At the start of round one I knew that I would have to lure the demons into range. After all, if they would like to throw spell attacks at me, they would have to move up. Indeed, Flamespooler charged to throw a Kamehameha into Dhoraz, which would have splashed onto Xandire as well. So I prayed three quick Ave Maria to Sigmar and indeed the demon missed. Then it was hammer-time and Dhoraz taught Flamespooler they way of the claw. A key moment was Ephilim casting a spell with double crits, suffering backlash. This would give me a huge advantage in round two. The rest of round one was back and forth without major incidents. I moved up into enemy territory. In the end phase I got lucky as Paul couldn’t score his objectives while I started to snowball.
Round two started with Xandire charging Ephilim. My leader was equipped with Feral Instincts, and Determined Brutality granted her Ensnare. That was enough to take out their unholyness. I still shit my pants because every demon is a threat in its own right, but this attack sealed the deal for me. We concluded 20 to 8 for me.
I’m unsure what I would take away from this game, there was no major misplay that led to this escalation. Paul’s opening hand included cards that required a number of spells to be cast and the dice simply failed him. I hit my attacks. That’s it. Unfortunately another quite frustrating game for my opponent, which he managed to laugh off.
One thing to note: Xandire inspires to movement four, which opened up the particularly amazing charge into Ephilim. I think you can easily forget about this boost, but it is really important.
Match 4 — FINAL — Storm of Andrii.
Playing four rounds leads to interesting moments: I won three games, Paul and Andrii two. So if I would lose against Andrii and Paul win his last match, we would be even. Andrii is a really strong opponent, having won two of our events. The Storm of Celestus is an odd bunch. I know they are beloved by Sleeksbowl, which is funny coincidence for this collaboration. I never played against them, but I knew they would fortify their Fearsome Fortress and shoot me in the knee. Once again I was faced with the decision to pick objectives and risk shitty board placement or handing my opponent three tokens in exchange for better starting positions. I picked tokens and Andrii longboarded me, which felt bad. In the end I think it didn’t make much difference, although Sleek’s Warning Cry ability definitely profits from the confined space of a longboard setup.
Up to this point dice went in my favor, but this changed drastically this time. Dhoraz and Xandire failed hitting anything round one, but at least I prevented Andrii from scoring high. In round two Dhoraz continued to miss and the only hit by Xandire was for nothing because of Celestus’ version of Healing Potion. Sleek moved into the back of my board and held the objective there. All enemy Stormcasts were alive on tokens, which led to Andrii scoring like eight glory this round while I was stuck with a total of around five.
At this point I tilted a little, failing to grasp why four dice hitting on hammers would only give me swords and double supports while my defense dice were locked in on dodge. But well, Sigmar was probably out eating dinner, completely forgetting his champions.
Round three gave me some form of retribution for the game state, leading to a pretty hilarious chain of events: Taros was equipped with Brutal Transformation and Feral Instincts, bringing him up to four damage with Grievous. Without thinking me thinking it possible after all those failed attacks, the bird hit Celestus and brought him down to one wound remaining (he was upgraded to five wounds). Then Stormider shot another enemy Stormcast, took this fighter out of action, and because of her Quick Volley Reaction she followed up with another arrow, taking out Celestus as well. This juicy combo chain succeeding despite all odds scored me seven glory in total and made Andrii laugh very hard. We ended the last match of this day 10 to 15.
Complement to Andrii for outmaneuvering and outscoring the Truthseekers, showing that holding objectives still has play!
Final Score
The self-fulfilling prophecy became reality: Paul, Andrii, and I now each won three of our games — so it was down total glory differential. We never had a podium that close, with only three glory between me on the third place and Andrii leading the pack. I was totally happy with the outcome. Everything had been possible after match three! Honestly I was surprised that the truth of the claw would get me that far into trophy territory.
As the organizer of the event I couldn’t be more satisfied with this day. Thanks to all players for patrticipating! I also really like that we have a great diversity of warbands instead of people only ever playing the top dogs.
After the tournament is before the next time, so it’s time for me to practice my Stormcoven ⛈️.
Reflection on the Truth of the Claw
I had a surprising amount of success with the Stormcasts. I won all of my practice games and three wins in the tournament is an amazing result to me. My goal was to win a single game. I conclude that the Truthseekers together with this deck are quite a threat, at least in the Nemesis format. As already mentioned in the introduction you will win or loose depending on your dice and the ability to score some of the wonkier objectives. Another issue is indeed the rather low glory ceiling, which probably contributed to me falling down to the third place due to total glory differential. Some more glory here and there would have secured the win. But hey, this really is nitpicking. Playing these Stormcasts was great fun.
I am interested in your thoughts and play experience with the Truthseekers! Just hit me up on Discord or the platform where you found this article. I am thinking about writing an article on how to build a local tournament scene, so if that would be interesting to you, please let me know!
