Trying out a Nemesis deck for Elathain's Soulraid

 So, coming in april I'll be attending a tournament in Halle, nearby Brussels, and I will be taking Elathain's Soulraid to the party.

As the tournament is the Nemesis format though, which I haven't played so far, I went out to build a deck pulled from Elathain's rivals deck, and combined with Force of Frost from Deathgorge.

The idea being pretty simple, as both decks share quite a few objectives that need the same conditions, that would mean I would need to remember less things for myself, and which things *might* still come out of the deck as a whole.  As a result, this is what I put together for it, a deck build around as few objective holding as possible due to the fragile holding power of the warband, and more around taking the fight to the opponents side, ai;ing for ganging up strikes:

Objectives - Surge (6) for 1 glory point each

Break the Ice - Force of Frost

Cold Blooded - Force of Frost

Surging Tide - Elathain's Soulraid

Speed of the Flood Tide - Elathain's Soulraid

Merciless Raiders - Elathain's Soulraid

Taker of Souls - Elathain's Soulraid

 

Objectives (6)

 

Chill of the Grave - 2 glory points - Force of Frost

Frozen Fate - 1 glory point - Force of Frost

Utter Isolation - 2 glory points - Elathain's Soulraid

Dead or Doomed - 3 glory points - Elathain's Soulraid

Tides of Death - 1 glory point - Elathain's Soulraid

Unseen Menace - 1 glory point - Elathain's Soulraid

 

This objective set allows me to score, bar the points from taking the enemy down to score most of them actually, a good 16 glory points in total (in theory of course).

 

Gambits (10)

 

For the 10 Gambits, I went with cards that either boosted my troops defensively, are able to get me some Ice tokens (for other cards) and some modest milling included (for sheer annoyance), as I know Elathain will be my main puncher, which isn't the most spectacular in the game so he will need any boost he can get.

Force of Frost: Icy Foreboding, Frozen to the Spot

Elathain's Soulraid: Brain Barnacles, Cloud of Midnight, Fury of the Storms, Phantasmal Forms, Shifting Currents, Spinefin Toxin, Terrornight Venom, Crushing Pressure.

Upgrades (10)

Finally the gear for the warband, again aiming at survivability mostly, because like I said my objectives are orientated to getting to the enemies side and cause havoc in a true raiders style.

Force of Frost: Blizzard Darts, Armour of Ice, Chasm Key, Frostwyrm Cloak, Frozen Heart

Elathain's Soulraid: Armour of the Cythai, Sanguine Pearl, Unstoppable Fury, Born from Agony, Hunter of Souls

Boards (2)

The final choice to make is which boards to take along.  I went for one of the recent Deathgorge ones, the Glacial Tomb, as I love that artwork, but also the Cursed Oubliette / Soul refractor one that is legal due to a rerelease in the starter set, but a lot of people don't seem used to be playing on this old school board.

So there we have it, the deck to try out and get used to playing...

Now of course, I would need to try out that deck preferably, and so I went to Outpost to meet with the Antwerp player group and get a first game in, to learn the warband (vastly different from my psycho girls of Morgwaith's), how to pilot the little pink fish, and get a first feel for the deck.

Facing me where the Chaos Warriors of Khagra's Ravagers and the Daring Delvers deck, piloted by Peter VDB, meaning I would have some hard-hitting, high toughness opponents against me.  I went out heftly out of the gates, taken down the spellcaster of the warband and scoring two glory cards: one for having three charge tokens in my warband, and one for taking down an enemy in enemy territory, after attacking his deck as well as both milling cards where in my opening hand.

Sadly, while turn 2 started well by taking down Khagra herself (but using to much attacks for getting her final wound to my liking), I didn`t manage to get points in that round, as he moved out of his own half to desecrate objectives at the end of his first turn with two warriors, and this resulted in his band being Inspired as well.  Fuirann was the first to fall on my side, and as he grabbed some glory he lead by the end of the second turn.

In the final turn, I went into move and try to score objectives, as I had some good cards including Dead or Doomed for the end phases, having traded in two surges as he didn't seem to go on my half anymore.  But my attacks kept failing miserably, and when Tammael went down, I knew I couldn't win anymore.  Never the less, thanks to my fishy, I actually grabbed 6 glory points in the final end phase, resulting in a 14-10 defeat.

If the second round had allowed me to score at least one of the surges, it might have been a totally different story, but while I have a warband with no 3 damage hitter and rather frail defences, they never the less proved to be a fun bunch to pilot.  Now to fine tune in future gatherings the playstyle and get more out of the fish (even though he did his job by early support, his toxin and scoring points in the end), I might have used it perhaps a bit later to be more disruptive.

On another note, more games where being played as well, on this cozy gathering.  First the Shadeborn took on the Stab-Ladz (7 - 6), while the second game between the Looncourt and Magore was still in full swing when I had to leave for the tram, but it seemed Magore had the upper hand at that point.

Until the next gathering I can attend for more Underworlds goodness!